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HUMAN  NATUEE  AND  ITS  REMAKING 


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HUMAN  NATURE  AND 


ITS  REMAKING 


WILLIAM  ERNEST  HOCKING,  Ph.D. 


PROFESSOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY  IN  HARVARD  UNIVERSITY 


NEW  HAVEN 

YALE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

LONDON:  HUMPHREY  MILFORD 
OXFORD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
MDCCCCXVIII 


Copyright,  1918,  by 
Yale  University  Press 


First  puhlishedy  May^  1918 


TO 

GEORGE  HERBERT  PALMER 


SKILLED  INTERPRETER  OF 
HUMAN  NATURE 
TEACHER  AND  FRIEND 


PREFACE 


SINCE  books  are  no  longer  supposed,  whether  by 
author  or  public,  to  contain  the  final  and  finished 
truth,  no  book  need  apologize  for  being  unripe.  One^s 
hope  is,  not  to  close  discussion,  but  to  open  it.  What 
I  have  here  aimed  to  do  is  the  work  rather  of  the 
quarryman  with  his  blasting  powder  than  of  the 
sculptor  with  his  chisel. 

Not  that  the  quarry  of  human  nature  is  a  new  one. 
But  that  we  are  only  beginning  to  learn  the  technique 
of  dealing  with  the  larger  masses.  Few  of  us,  I  dare 
say,  are  satisfied  with  the  degree  of  clarity  we  have 
reached  about  the  rights  of  the  primitive  impulses, — 
of  the  instincts  of  pugnacity,  sex,  acquisition,  etc., — as 
compared  with  the  claims  of  social  orders  such  as  we 
see  dissolving  before  our  eyes,  or  of  super-social 
orders,  of  art  and  religion.  These  and  other  agencies 
attempt  to  transform  the  original  material  of  human 
nature;  human  nature  resists  the  remaking  process; 
the  groping  effort  of  mutual  adjustment  has  continued 
throughout  the  length  of  history,  has  made  the  chief 
theme  of  history;  we  still  seek  the  broader  principles 
which  govern  the  process,  call  it  what  you  will, — the 
process  of  remaking,  of  educating,  of  civilizing,  of  con¬ 
verting  or  of  saving  the  human  being.  Quest  of  such 
principles  is  the  object  of  this  present  essay. 


Vlll 


PEEFACE 


No  doubt,  we  have  always  bad  our  authorities  ready 
to  spare  us  the  trouble  of  search,  ready  to  settle  ex 
cathedra  what  human  nature  is  and  ought  to  become. 
And  presumably  we  have  always  had  a  party  of  revolt 
against  authority,  convention,  and  the  like,  in  the  name 
of  what  is  ‘natural,^ — a  revolt  which  has  commonly 
been  as  dogmatic  and  intuitional  as  the  authority  itself. 

But  the  revolt  of  today  is  no  longer  either  impres¬ 
sionistic  or  sporadic.  It  is  psychological,  economic, 
political: — and  it  is  general.  The  explosive  forces  of 
self-assertion  which  have  finally  burst  their  bounds 
in  the  political  life  of  Central  Europe  have  their  seat 
in  a  widespread  spiritual  rebellion,  a  critical  im¬ 
patience  of  ‘established’  sentiments  and  respecta¬ 
bilities,  a  deliberate  philosophic  rejection  not  more  of 
Hague  Conventions  than  of  other  conventions,  a 
drastic  judgment  of  non-reality  upon  the  pieties  of 
Christendom. 

This  rebellion  would  hardly  have  become  so  wide¬ 
spread  or  so  disastrous  if  it  were  wholly  without 
ground.  It  indicates  that  our  moral  idealisms  like  our 
metaphysical  idealisms  have  been  taking  their  task  too 
complacently.  Our  Western  world  has  adhered  to 
standards  with  which  it  has  never  supposed  its  prac¬ 
tice  to  be  in  accord ;  but  heaving  a  resigned  sigh  over 
the  erring  tendencies  of  human  nature,  it  has  offered 
to  these  standards  that  ‘of  course’  variety  of  homage 
which  is  the  beginning  of  mental  and  moral  coma.  By 
labelling  these  standards  ‘  ideals  ’  it  has  rendered  them 
innocuous  while  maintaining  the  profession  of  defer¬ 
ence;  an  ‘ideal’  has  been  taken  as  something  which 


PKEFACE 


IX 


everybody  is  expected  to  honor  and  nobody  is  expected 
to  attain. 

It  is  just  these  ideals  that  are  now  violently  chal¬ 
lenged,  and  the  challenge  is  salutary.  It  is  precisely 
the  so-called  Christian  world  which,  having  gone  mor¬ 
ally  to  sleep,  is  now  put  to  a  fight  for  life  with  the  men 
who  persist  in  reducing  their  standards  to  the  level 
of  common  practice,  in  reaching  their  code  of  behavior 
from  below  upward,  not  from  above  downward,  in 
keeping  their  ‘ideals’  close  to  the  earth  or  at  least  in 
discernible  working  connection  with  the  earth.  Their 
creed  we  may  name  moral  realism;  and  the  craving  for 
an  ingredient  of  moral  realism  in  our  philosophy  seems 
to  me  a  justified  hunger  of  the  age.  The  whole  set  of 
realistic  upheavals,  Nietzscheian,  neo-Machiavellian, 
Syndicalistic,  Freudian,  and  other,  crowd  forward 
with  doctrines  about  human  nature  and  its  destiny 
which  at  least  have  life  in  them.  Whatever  else  they 
contain,  unsound  or  sinister,  they  contain  Thought: 
and  this  thought  must  be  met  on  its  own  ground.  The 
next  step,  whether  in  social  philosophy,  or  in  educa¬ 
tion,  or  in  ethics,  requires  an  understanding  between 
whatever  valid  elements  moral  realism  may  contain 
and  the  valid  elements  of  the  challenged  tradition. 

We  find  our  initial  common  ground  with  this  realism 
by  accepting,  for  the  purposes  of  the  argument,  the 
picture  of  original  human  nature  as  a  group  of 
instincts. 

With  this  starting  point,  the  usual  realistic  assump¬ 
tion  is  that  human  life  consists  in  trying  to  get  what 


X 


PKEFACE 


these  instincts  want.  Mankind’s  persistent  concern 
in  food,  adornment,  property,  mates,  children,  politi¬ 
cal  activity,  etc.,  is  supposed  to  be  explained  by  the 
fact  that  his  instincts  confer  value  on  these  objects. 
By  shaping  our  ‘values,’  instinct  becomes  the  shaper 
of  life.  And  the  first  and  main  business  of  the  science 
of  living  would  be  to  set  up  an  authentic  and  propor¬ 
tionate  list  of  the  instincts  proper  to  man. 

Then  every  social  order,  every  moral  or  economic 
code,  every  standard  of  living  would  be  judged  by  the 
satisfaction  it  could  promise  to  the  chorus  of  innate 
hungers  and  impulses  thus  revealed. 

This  view  is  simple,  attractive, — and  profoundly  un¬ 
true  to  experience.  The  trouble  is  that  no  one  can  tell 
by  identifying  and  naming  an  instinct  what  will  satisfy 
it.  Certainly  we  cannot  take  the  biological  function 
of  an  instinct  as  a  sufficient  account  of  what  that  in¬ 
stinct  means  to  a  human  being — as  if  hunger  held  the 
conscious  purpose  of- building  the  body,  or  love  were 
an  aim  to  continue  the  species.  The  word  ‘instinct’ 
has  no  magic  to  annul  the  obvious  truth  that  satisfac¬ 
tion  is  a  state  of  mind,  nor  to  evade  the  long  labor  of 
experience  in  determining  what  can  satisfy  a  mind. 
Conscious  life  is  engaged  quite  as  much  in  trying  to 
find  out  what  it  wants  as  in  trying  to  get  it. 

The  truth  is,  instinct  requires  interpretation.  We 
can  set  up  a  usable  measure  of  social  justice  and  the 
like  only  if  we  can  find  something  like  a  true  inter¬ 
pretation  of  instinct,  or  of  the  will  as  a  whole.  In¬ 
stinct  by  itself  has  no  claims,  because  it  has  no  head; 


PKEFACE 


# 


XI 


it  cannot  so  mnch  as  say  what  it  wants  except  through 
an  interpreter. 

Our  essay  becomes,  accordingly,  an  experiment  in 
interpretation.  And  there  are  various  agencies  which 
offer  aid  in  the  undertaking.  In  the  person  of  parent, 
pedagog,  lawmaker,  society  stands  ready  to  inform  the 
individual  through  its  discipline,  ‘‘This  is  what  you 
want, — not  that,^^  and  to  insist  on  his  choosing  the 
alleged  better  part.  All  the  usual  processes  of  train¬ 
ing  or  remaking  purport  to  be  at  the  same  time  works 
of  interpretation :  they  profess  to  bring  to  light  a  ‘reaP 
will,  as  contrasted  with  an  apparent  will,  and  so  to 
introduce  human  nature  to  its  own  meaning. 

But  if  society  (as  not  a  few  of  our  social  philoso¬ 
phers  believe)  is  the  only  or  final  interpreter  of  human 
nature,  human  nature  is  helpless  as  against  society. 
Our  individualisms,  our  democracies,  with  their  brave 
claims  in  behalf  of  the  human  unit,  have  no  case. 
‘Socialization^  is  the  last  word  in  human  development; 
and  society  is  always  right. 

If  we  refuse,  as  we  do,  to  accept  this  conclusion,  the 
alternative  is  to  find  some  way,  in  independence  of 
‘society,^  to  an  objectively  valid  interpretation  of  the 
human  will.  The  case  of  all  liberalism,  of  all  reform, 
of  every  criticism  and  likewise  of  every  defence  of  any 
social  regime,  must  rest  in  the  last  analysis  upon  the 
discovery,  or  the  assumption,  of  such  a  ‘true^  inter¬ 
pretation.  And  my  hope  in  this  essay  is  that  we  may 
chart  the  way  to  it,  and  thus  sketch  the  valid  basis  of 
an  individualistic  theory  of  society. 


Xll 


PREFACE 


We  are  not,  of  course,  presuming  that  mankind  has 
ever,  in  practice,  been  without  such  a  standard.  For 
mankind  has  always  had  a  religion,  and  it  has  been 
one  of  the  historic  functions  of  religion  to  keep  men 
in  mind  of  the  goal  of  their  own  wills.  And  in  so  far 
as  it  has  done  its  work  well,  religion  has  in  fact  set 
men  free  from  the  domination  of  unjust  social  and 
political  constraints.  The  religious  consciousness  has 
apprised  human  nature  of  its  ‘rights’ — not  merely  of 
its  claims — and  has  become  the  source  of  whatever  is 
now  solid  in  our  democracies. 

And  even  if  the  social  order  were  perfectly  just  in 
its  arrangements,  freedom  would  still  require  the  ful¬ 
filment  of  this  religious  function.  For  a  man  is  not 
free  unless  he  is  delivered  from  persistent  sidelong 
anxiety  about  his  immediate  effectiveness,  from  servi¬ 
tude  to  an  incalculable  if  not  whimsical  human  flux. 
He  is  free  only  if  he  can  mentally  direct  all  his  work 
to  a  constant  and  absolute  judgment,  address  his  daily 
labor,  if  you  like,  to  God,  build  his  houses  to  God  and 
not  to  men,  write  his  hooks  to  God,  in  the  State  serve 
his  God  only,  love  his  God  in  the  family,  and  fight 
against  the  (incarnate)  devil  and  the  devil  alone. 
Kepler’s  famous  words  at  the  end  of  his  preface  to 
the  Weltharmonik  are  the  words  of  the  free  man  in 
this  sense: 

Here  I  cast  the  die,  and  write  a  book  to  be  read  whether 
by  contemporaries  or  by  posterity,  I  care  not.  I  can  wait  for 
readers  thousands  of  years,  seeing  that  God  waited  six  thou¬ 
sand  years  for  someone  to  contemplate  his  work. 

An  age  of  competition,  like  our  own,  unless  it  is 


PEEFACE 


Xlll 


something  else  than  competitive,  cannot  he  a  free  age, 
however  democratic  in  structure,  because  its  chief 
concerns  are  lateral.  To  the  competitive  elements  in 
our  own  social  order  we  owe  much: — an  impersonal 
estimate  of  worth  in  terms  of  efficiency  which  we  shall 
not  surrender,  a  taste  and  technique  for  severe  self¬ 
measurement,  incredible  finesse  in  the  discrimination 
and  mounting  of  individual  talents.  But  we  owe  to  it 
also  an  over-development  of  the  invidious  comparative 
eye,  a  trend  of  attention  fascinated  by  the  powers, 
perquisites,  and  opinions  of  the  immediate  neighbors. 
The  eternal  standard  is  obscured :  hence  we  do  nothing 
well;  we  lack  sincerity  and  simplicity;  we  are  sus¬ 
picious,  disunited,  flabby;  we  do  not  find  ourselves; 
we  are  not  free.  Unless  we  can  recover  a  working 
hold  on  some  kind  of  religious  innervation,  our 
democracy  will  shortly  contain  little  that  is  worthy 
to  survive. 

But  it  is  one  of  the  permanent  achievements  of  our 
time  that  we  recognize  no  antagonism  between  the 
work  of  thought  and  the  voice  of  religious  intuition. 
We  must  perpetually  regain  our  right  to  an  absolute 
object  through  the  labor  of  reflection, — in  our  own 
case,  the  labor  of  interpretation. 

In  the  preparation  of  this  book,  I  have  accumulated 
many  personal  obligations,  quite  apart  from  the 
scientific  debts  acknowledged  at  various  points  in  the 
argument.  And  beside  these,  there  is  an  obligation 
of  a  less  personal  character  though  not  less  real :  that, 
namely,  to  the  liberal  and  heartening  spirit  of  the  Yale 


I 


XIV 


PEEFACE 


community.  Those  who  heard  the  lectures  on  which 
these  pages  were  originally  based,  lectures  on  the 
Nathaniel  Taylor  foundation  given  in  1916  before  the 
School  of  Eeligion  of  Yale  University,  will  hardly 
recognize  them  in  their  present  form.  But  the  incen¬ 
tive  is  theirs;  and  if  the  idea  has  grown,  I  trust  it  is 
by  way  of  doing  greater  justice  to  the  original  theme. 

WILLIAM  ERNEST  HOCKING. 


Cambridge,  March,  1918. 


CONTENTS 


Preface  .........  vii 


PART  I 

ORIENTATION 

Chapter  I.  An  Art  Peculiar  to  Man  .  .  .  1 

Why  human  character  is  and  should  be  an  artificial  product. 

Chapter  II.  The  Emergence  op  Problems  .  .  5 

It  is  only  through  much  social  experience  that  the  funda¬ 
mental  problems  of  the  art  of  remaking  human  nature  are 
recognized;  the  experience  of  religion,  of  politics,  of  the 
social  sciences. 

Chapter  III.  On  the  Possibility  of  Changing 

Human  Nature  ....  9 

Intuition  neither  deceives  nor  settles  the  question  of  free¬ 
dom  to  change;  evidence,  structural  and  historic,  of  human 
plasticity;  legislative  pessimism  and  religious  hopefulness; 
why  experience  fails  to  solve  the  problem. 

Chapter  IV.  What  Changes  are  Desirable?  Lib¬ 
eration  VERSUS  Discipline  .  .  16 

Difficulty  of  realizing  ideals  casts  doubt  on  the  ideals; 

doubt  whether  we  know  what  we  want;  liberalism  turns  to 
nature  for  instruction ;  the  failure  of  pure  liberalism ; 
Nietzsche. 

Chapter  V.  The  Liberator  as  Disciplinarian  .  .  24 

Change  of  mind  in  Eousseau  and  in  German  Eomanticism; 
why  Hegel’s  work  must  be  done  over,  and  is  being  done  in 
part  by  naturalistic  psychology;  the  element  of  strength  in 
Nietzsche;  present  state  of  the  problem. 


XVI 


CONTENTS 


Chapter  YI.  An  Independent  Standard  .  .  29 

The  logical  possibility  of  being  wholly  just  to  nature,  while 
judging  nature  a  blind  guide.  The  position  of  Plato,  of 
Spinoza,  of  recent  ^ value  theory';  method  of  our  study. 

PART  II 

THE  NATURAL  MAN 

Chapter  YII.  The  Elements  of  Human  Nature: 

THE  Notion  of  Instinct  ...  37 

The  notion  of  instinct  a  result  of  abstraction;  its  biological 
definition;  its  psychological  side. 

Chapter  YIII.  The  Range  of  Instinct  ...  45 

What  criteria  can  be  used  for  recognizing  instinct?  How 
and  why  observers  differ  as  to  the  amount  of  instinct  to  be 
attributed  to  man. 

Chapter  IX.  Survey  of  the  Human  Equipment  .  51 

The  ‘  units  of  behavior ' ;  the  existence  of  ‘  general  in¬ 
stincts ';  instincts  of  the  second  order;  ^central  instincts'; 
a  partial  tabular  view. 

Chapter  X.  The  Central  Instincts:  Necessary 

Interests  .....  61 

The  alleged  instinct  of  curiosity  as  a  problem  in  the 
morphology  of  instinct;  the  theory  of  central  stimulation 
and  response;  importance  and  difficulty  of  the  central 
instincts. 

Chapter  XI.  The  Will  .....  68 

Probability  that  central  instincts  are  not  separable  entities; 
the  will  as  the  identical  element  in  all  value-experience  when 
that  element  becomes  a  ‘stable  policy';  the  ‘will  to  power' 
as  a  name  less  bad  than  some  others  for  the  general  element 
in  human  wills;  two  Nietzscheian  errors  discarded  at  the 
outset. 


Note  on  Freud 


75 


CONTENTS 


XVll 


Chapter  XII.  Mind  and  Body:  the  Last  Analysis  .  78 

The  speculative  question  whether  will  can  be  further  ana¬ 
lyzed  ;  ‘  energy  ’  as  an  explanatory  conception  j  will  conceived 
in  terms  of  idea  at  work. 

PART  III 
CONSCIENCE 

Chapter  XIII.  The  Interest  in  Justice  ...  87 

The  interest  in  justice,  according  to  Aristotle,  is  the  basis 
of  political  life,  and  is  an  exhibition  of  human  nature;  can 
we  admit  an  original  moral  disposition  or  instinct? 

Chapter  XIV.  Conscience  and  the  General  Will  .  91 

Given  sociability  and  a  power  of  generalization,  some  kind 
of  an  ‘  ought  ^  was  bound  to  emerge ;  but  the  socially  derived 
‘ought’  is  not  identical  with  the  ‘I  ought’  of  experience. 

Chapter  XV.  Conscience  and  Instinct  ...  95 

How  conscience  resembles  an  instinct — an  untaught,  tropistic 
seeking  for  objects  of  primary  devotion — and  yet  differs 
from  all  hereditary  mechanisms;  it  is  a  form  of  self-aware¬ 
ness,  dealing  with  fluxes  in  the  being  of  the  will. 

Chapter  XVI.  Current  Fallacies  Regarding  Sin  .  101 

The  logic  of  moral  error — does  a  lie  prove  a  liar?  The  fal¬ 
lacy  of  cancelling  right  against  wrong;  the  fallacy  of  cus¬ 
tom,  to  the  effect  that  generality  diminishes  guilt;  the  fal¬ 
lacy  of  ‘nature,’  to  the  effect  that  the  natural  is  right. 

Chapter  XVII.  Instinct  and  Sin  ....  Ill 

No  primitive  impulse  taken  by  itself  is  wrong;  but  in  the 
human  mind  no  impulse  is  by  itself,  and  crude  impulses  are 
presumably  not  justifled  in  remaining  crude;  sin  as  failure 
to  give  an  impulse  its  achievable  meaning,  i.e.,  as  failure 
to  interpret  it. 

Chapter  XVIII.  Sin  as  Blindness  and  Untruth  .  118 

The  descriptive  difference  between  sin  and  right  is  evanes¬ 
cent;  sin  may  consist  in  suppressing  an  increment  of  knowl¬ 
edge;  and  the  act,  by  virtue  of  its  environment,  will  then 
express  a  false  judgment. 


XVlll 


CONTENTS 


Chapter  XIX.  Why  Men  Sin  ....  125 

Sin  cannot  be  causally  explained;  it  is  not  to  be  referred 
to  the  ‘  stronger  motive,  ^  nor  to  the  ‘  curve  of  learning  ’ ;  but 
the  conditions  may  be  described  which  favor  the  above- 
mentioned  blindness,  namely,  the  existence  of  moral  di¬ 
lemmas.  Various  dilemmas  described.  The  complete  moral 
motive  combines  the  ruing  of  evil  with  the  attraction  of 
good. 

Chapter  XX.  Sin  as  Status  .....  137 

Sin  as  deed  cannot  be  original.  But  beside  the  moral  act, 
there  is  a  moral  status ;  and  if  the  holy  will  is  a  status  to  be 
acquired,  it  is  presumably  not  inborn;  a  moral  status  may 
always  be  regarded  as  a  matter  of  fact,  and  as  such  neither 
to  be  punished  nor  rewarded;  it  becomes  a  corresponding 
question  of  fact  whether  such  status  has  metaphysical  im¬ 
plications.  The  metaphysical  assertion,  sin  involves  finitude 
or  mortality,  a  legitimate  addition  to  the  moral  motive,  if 
true. 

PART  IV 

EXPERIENCE 

Chapter  XXI.  The  Agencies  of  Remaking  .  .  147 

Original  human  nature  always  a  factor  in  remaking  human 
nature:  ultimately  nothing  can  change  a  will  but  itself. 

But  outer  facts  must  furnish  data  and  incentives:  and  the 
co-operation  of  outer  and  inner  factors  of  change  is  ^expe¬ 
rience.  ’  We  cannot  distinguish  between  social  and  indi¬ 
vidual  experience;  but  we  can  distinguish  between  free  ex¬ 
perience  and  experience  under  social  constraint. 

Chapter  XXII.  The  Task  of  Experience  .  .  151 

Experience  has  (among  other  tasks)  to  effect  the  trans¬ 
formation  of  general  dispositions  into  individual  habits 
which  interpret  these  dispositions;  the  work  of  intelligence, 
curiosity,  and  play;  experience  in  active  form  as  experi¬ 
mentation. 

Chapter  XXIII.  The  Methods  of  Experience  .  156 

Pleasure  and  pain,  the  universal  instruments  of  experience, 
produce  different  results  upon  different  types  of  mind;  in 


CONTENTS 


XIX 


the  human  being,  pain  leads  to  discrimination  and  thought, 
rather  than  to  blank  inhibition.  Human  experience  with  any 
given  instinct  thus  takes  the  form  of  a  series  of  hypotheses 
as  to  what  it  wants,  constituting  a  more  or  less  coherent 
argument,  guided  chiefly  by  the  ‘mental  after-image’;  this 
argument  might  reasonably  be  called  the  ‘dialectic’  of  the 
will. 

Chapter  XXIV.  The  Dialectic  of  Pugnacity  .  164 

What  pugnacity  wants,  described  in  a  typical  series  of 
hypotheses:  destruction,  revenge,  punishment,  cure;  this 
development  would  probably  take  place  were  there  no  social 
constraint  upon  the  expression  of  pugnacity. 

PART  V 
SOCIETY 

Chapter  XXV.  Social  Modelling  ....  171 

The  presumption  that  social  pressure  warps  human  nature; 
and  the  counter  presumption  that  conventions  have  a  mean¬ 
ing. 

Chapter  XXVI.  Main  Directions  of  Social  Model¬ 
ling  ......  177 

Normally,  social  interference  facilitates,  and  carries  on 
farther  in  the  same  direction,  the  work  of  individual  expe¬ 
rience, — and,  for  that  matter,  of  organic  evolution  as  a 
whole;  as  instances:  ‘prolonging  the  vestibule  of  satisfac¬ 
tion,’  as  seen  in  the  ease  of  hunger  and  sex;  the  widening 
of  the  horizon  of  action  together  with  increasing  discrimi¬ 
nation  or  restriction  of  objects  dealt  with.  Thus,  social 
action  is  not  primarily  repressive;  but  there  are  three  ways 
in  particular  in  which  it  becomes  so.  These  are  to  be  dealt 
with  in  order. 

Chapter  XXVII.  Ideals  and  Their  Recommenders  .  183 

Most  ideals  are  colored  by  the  selfish  wishes  of  those  who 
promulgate  them;  but  not  even  the  self-interest  of  society 
as  a  whole  takes  precedence  of  the  interest  of  its  members. 

Here  is  stated  an  individualistic  theory  of  ‘right’;  and  the 
postulate  is  deduced  with  which  society  must  comply  if  its 


XX 


CONTENTS 


ideals  are  to  be  right  ideals.  Various  social  arrangements 
which  help  to  secure  this  condition:  among  others,  the  nat¬ 
ural  function  of  the  Kecommender;  and  the  conflict  of  ab¬ 
stract  ideals. 

Chapter  XXVIII.  Laws  and  the  State  .  .  .  196 

When  we  consider  not  ideals,  but  the  material  basis  of  all 
instinct -satisfactions,  it  is  obvious  that  social  life  neces¬ 
sarily  requires  sacrifice,  and  that  the  question  of  the  social 
contract — is  society  worth  the  sacrifice? — is  not  fanciful. 

The  condition  under  which  a  social  life  can  be  free,  or  worth 
its  cost,  stated  in  a  second  postulate:  it  must  be  possible 
to  subordinate  competitive  interests  to  non-competitive 
interests;  this  postulate  can  be  complied  with  only  through 
the  existence  of  the  political  State:  the  existence  of  the 
State,  therefore,  is  something  which  men  necessarily  (hence 
unanimously)  will. 

Chapter  XXIX.  Institutions  and  Change  .  .  211 

No  institutions  wholly  comply,  and  perhaps  none  can  wholly 
comply,  with  the  foregoing  demands:  it  does  not  at  once 
follow  that  they  should  be  abolished.  It  is  to  be  considered 
that  part  of  the  maladaptation,  so  far  as  it  comes  to  con¬ 
sciousness,  is  an  incident  of  progress  itself;  and  that  human 
nature  is  adapted  to  maladaptation,  provided  that  it  can 
regard  all  existing  misfit  as  grist  for  its  will  to  power.  The 
highest  social  expression  of  the  will  to  power  is  found  in  the 
changing  of  institutions;  institutions  must  be  condemned, 
not  if  evil  exists  in  them ;  but  if  it  persists.  Our  third  postu¬ 
late  is  that  institutions  shall  make  institutional  provision  for 
change,  as  their  unfitness  is  felt  and  diagnosed;  but  since 
it  is  the  wish  of  every  radical  and  experimentalist  that 
something  be  established,  he  has  an  inalienable  interest  in 
conservation.  Hence  a  fourth  postulate:  conserving  force 
must  be  proportionate  to  certainty. 

Chapter  XXX.  Education  .....  226 

The  activity  of  educating  has  an  instinctive  basis  and  func¬ 
tion;  it  requires  social  self-consciousness  and  self-criticism. 

It  is  commonly  regarded  as  a  sort  of  social  reproduction; 
but  it  must  provide  for  growth  beyond  the  type;  yet  the 
process  of  education  is  such  that  the  type  is  transmitted; 
the  first  business  of  education  is  to  bring  a  will  into  exist¬ 
ence;  this  can  be  done  only  by  exposing  all  instincts  to 


CONTENTS 


XXI 


their  appropriate  stimuli.  Education  is,  first  of  all,  ex¬ 
posure;  and  this  exposure  can  only  be  effected  by  appre- 
ciators  of  the  goods  in  question.  The  exposure  should  be 
proportionate;  various  problems  considered;  education  of 
thought;  of  the  will  to  power.  Problems  of  adolescence; 
delay  in  acquisition  and  in  sex-expression;  sublimation  in 
the  planning-instinct,  and  in  world-building;  education  in 
originality;  the  self -elimination  of  society. 

Chapter  XXXI.  The  Right  of  Rebellion  .  .  254 

He  who  would  destroy  a  too  conservative  social  structure 
must  assure  himself  (1)  whether  it  has  the  good  will  to 
change;  and,  if  not,  (2)  whether  he  can  have  faith  in  its 
possible  good  will.  Society  has  the  same  two  questions  to 
answer  regarding  the  rebel.  There  can  be  no  legal  right  of 
rebellion;  but  this  does  not  decide  whether  rebellion  may 
be  right. 

Chapter  XXXII.  Punishment  ....  257 

Punishment  consists  in  making  the  external  status  corre¬ 
spond  to  the  internal  status.  The  criminal  must  be  distin¬ 
guished  from  the  rebel;  he  must  be  treated  as  possible  rebel 
and  as  possible  citizen.  The  State  has  no  choice  but  to 
punish ;  yet  punishment,  administered  by  an  imperfect 
State,  contains  self-defeating  elements ;  the  history  of  crimi¬ 
nal  procedure  shows  the  various  attempts  of  society  to  es¬ 
cape  this  dilemma;  but  their  chief  success,  so  far,  is  in 
localizing  the  injury.  The  restoration  of  the  criminal  to 
citizenship  must  be  the  work  of  forces  not  contained  in 
the  State  per  se;  in  punishing,  as  in  educating,  society  de¬ 
pends  for  its  success  on  agencies  beyond  its  own  border. 

PART  VI 

ART  AND  RELIGION 

Chapter  XXXIII.  Vox  Dei  .....  273 

Can  the  distinction  between  the  work  of  society  and  the 
work  of  religion  in  remaking  human  nature  be  maintained? 

The  historical  differentiation  has  apparently  ended  in  elimi¬ 
nating  the  distinct  Vox  Dei  as  useless;  reasons  for  doubt¬ 
ing  this  result;  and  proposal  of  a  method  for  discriminat¬ 
ing  the  work  of  society  from  that  of  further  factors. 


XXll 


CONTENTS 


Chapter  XXXIV.  The  Public  Order  and  the 

Private  Order  ....  280 

How  much  of  the  individual  man  can  find  expression,  or  be 
‘saved,’  in  each  of  the  two  orders  that  constitute  society, 
or  in  both  taken  together? 

Chapter  XXXV.  Society  and  Beyond  Society  .  285 

The  private  order  and  the  public  order  are  so  related  that 
each  not  alone  supplements  the  other,  but  presupposes  suc¬ 
cess  in  the  other;  this  success  is  always  rather  relative  and 
promissory  than  actual;  and  hence  at  no  point  can  life  in 
society  be  satisfactory,  unless  the  will  finds  some  point  of 
absolute  satisfaction  outside  society;  the  whole  psychologi¬ 
cal  structure  of  society  depends  on  some  provision  whereby 
the  wills  of  its  individual  members  (in  anticipation  of  the 
result  of  infinite  social  evolution)  may  attain  an  absolute 
goal;  this  need  is  professedly  supplied,  in  one  way  by  art; 
in  another  by  religion. 

Chapter  XXXVI.  The  World  of  Rebirth  .  .  293 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  art  and  religion  undertake  to 
provide  only  for  residues,  or  lost  powers,  in  human  nature: 
their  business  is  with  the  whole  of  human  nature,  and  with 
residues  only  because  they  are  concerned  with  the  whole; 
in  early  law  and  custom,  at  the  time  when  these  were  still 
regarded  as  sacred,  we  find  art  and  religion  assuming  joint 
control  over  the  shaping  of  human  nature.  And  as  every  man 
was  considered  not  alone  subject  to  the  law,  but  also  a  trans¬ 
mitter  and  wielder,  if  not  a  maker,  of  the  law,  he  was  sup¬ 
posed  to  come  through  it  into  the  exercise  of  this  same  ulti¬ 
mate  control;  the  experience  of  ‘initiation’;  of  conversion: 
subordinating  social  passions  to  an  ulterior  passion. 

Chapter  XXXVII.  The  Sacred  Law  .  .  .  299 

A  more  detailed  examination  of  the  sacred  law,  showing 
that  it  was  based  not  on  social  utility,  but  on  a  principle 
claiming  to  instruct  utility;  its  aesthetic  and  ethical  ele¬ 
ments;  truth  and  error  in  its  claim  to  validity. 

Chapter  XXXVIII.  Art  and  Human  Nature  .  .  316 

Art  wins  independence  from  all  religious  entanglements; 
in  this  free  shape  it  is  neither  wish-dream  nor  imitation  of 
fact:  it  is  a  symbolized  achievement  of  the  will  in  real  and 

\ 


CONTENTS 


XXlll 


objective  media;  it  intends  to  have  the  force  not  of  law, 
but  of  convincing  language, — a  freer  development  of  law;  / 
beginning  as  an  effort  to  define,  and  thus  win  power  over  the^ 
object  of  common  desire — assuming  an  ascendency  over  the 
minds  of  the  desirers — it  finds  a  secondary  satisfaction  in 
creating  the  image  of  that  object;  it  thus  discovers  a  field 
of  objects  which  can  be  possessed  in  no  other  way  than  by 
thus  reproducing  them;  these  objects  are  called  ‘beauti¬ 
ful’;  art  becomes  especially  identified  with  the  activity  of 
possessing  the  beautiful,  in  which  all  socially  interested 
activity  is  suspended;  and  its  specific  passion  may  super¬ 
sede  all  social  passions;  direct  and  indirect  effect  of  art 
on  the  shaping  of  human  instincts:  the  inadequacy  of  art. 

Chapter  XXXIX.  Religion  per  se  .  .  .  .  328 

Eeligion  seems  left  empty  by  the  removal  of  law,  science,'^ 
art,  etc.;  but  it  still  claims  a  positive  content,  makes  super¬ 
lative  claims  for  it,  and  has  found  devotees  who  declare 
its  passion  supreme  over  others;  we  cannot  understand  this 
fact  if  we  regard  the  ascetic  as  an  anomalous  and  parasitic 
denier  of  all  social  value ;  it  can  only  be  understood  through 
the  psychological  necessity  that  all  social  values,  together 
with  those  of  law  and  art,  be  preserved  by  an  alternation 
between  attending  to  them  and  turning  away  from  them  to 
their  source.  Asceticism  thus  may  be,  and  historically  has 
been,  an  assertion  of  the  will  to  power;  but  it  has  been  a 
partial  and  imperfect  satisfaction,  and  must  give  way  to, 
or  be  included  within,  a  more  concrete  type  of  religion. 


PART  VII 

CHRISTIANITY 

Chapter  XL.  What  Christianity  Requires  .  .  339 

The  practical  injunctions  of  Christianity  are  directed 
toward  the  feelings,  and  thus  concern  the  theory  of  human 
instinct;  but  there  seems  to  be  a  psychological  ineptitude  in 
a  command  to  ‘love’;  hence  these  injunctions  are  commonly 
reinterpreted  in  terms  of  behavior;  there  are  reasons,  how¬ 
ever,  for  supposing  that  Christianity  may  have  meant  what 
it  says. 


XXIV 


CONTENTS 


Chapter  XLI.  Christianity  and  Pugnacity  .  .  344 

Society  transforms  pugnacity  into  constructive  critical  ac¬ 
tivity,  and  for  this  reason  cannot  comply  with  the  command, 

Judge  not;  not  only  in  the  public  order,  but  in  the  private 
order  also,  in  all  education,  the  critical  judgment  must  be 
active;  the  Christian  command  seems  an  abandonment  of 
justice  and  a  return  to  the  moral  indifference  of  nature; 
but  there  are  circumstances  under  which  it  may  be  the  pre¬ 
cise  opposite,  expressing  a  justice  not  to  the  static  but  to  the 
changeable  self ;  these  circumstances  show  what  Christianity 
means,  and  dispose  of  the  opposite  errors  (1)  of  meaning¬ 
less  non-resistance  and  (2)  of  referring  the  ideal  to  a  dis¬ 
tant  future. 

Chapter  XLII.  Christianity  and  Sex-love  .  .  355 

The  general  attitude  of  Christianity  toward  sex-love  is  as 
negative  as  toward  pugnacity;  from  the  individual  stand¬ 
point  it  is  not  obvious  that  sex-love  is  necessary,  as  pug¬ 
nacity  is  necessary;  though  the  psychological  function  of 
sex -love  must  be  performed;  the  question:  What  is  this  psy¬ 
chological  function?  Beginning  as  a  craving  for  ‘sub¬ 
conscious  respiration,’  in  which  the  will  to  power  seems 
mingled  with  an  opposite  impulse  toward  self-abandonment, 
the  experience  of  love  is  one  of  progressive  discovery  of  its 
own  meaning;  this  meaning,  while  it  certainly  has  a  meta¬ 
physical  horizon,  is  not  Platonic:  it  is,  a  giving  of  concrete 
life,  i.e.,  life  of  soul,  body,  and  estate.  Christianity  assumes 
that  this  life-giving  impulse  can  be  satisfied  completely 
apart  from  marriage,  on  the  simple  ground  that  it  is  not 
the  deepest  thing  in  human  nature ;  at  most,  it  is  next  to  the 
deepest;  it  proposes  philanthropy  and  art,  when  conjoined 
with  worship,  as  a  complete  ‘sublimation’;  but  its  intention 
is  that  its  ‘absolute’  meaning  shall  live  within  the  relations 
of  men  and  women,  not  displace  them;  and  just  because  its 
entire  interest  is  in  the  ultimate  meaning,  it  neither  criti¬ 
cises  nor  sanctions  any  particular  convention:  it  insists  on 
nothing  but  its  highly  simple  criterion. 

Chapter  XLIII.  Christianity  and  Ambition  .  .  372 

Early  Christianity  accommodated  itself  to  the  conditions 
of  State  life;  but  professed  scorn  for  all  those  things  after 
which  ‘  ‘  the  Gentiles  seek  ” ;  it  was  as  far  as  possible,  how¬ 
ever,  from  attempting  to  eliminate  ambition:  it  recognized 


CONTENTS 


XXV 


the  fact,  not  perceived  by  Buddhism,  that  ambition  is  the 
essence  of  religion;  it  undertook,  as  its  chief  positive  ap¬ 
peal  to  human  nature,  to  swing  all  energies  into  the  channel 
of  spreading  the  ‘Kingdom  of  Heaven,’  an  interest  which, 
in  personal  form,  becomes  the  ‘passion  for  souls,’  the  most 
characteristic  product  of  Christianity;  it  exists  in  many 
recognizable  forms;  in  this  point,  the  meanings  of  all  the 
instincts  converge;  and  there  is  reason  to  regard  it  as  the 
ultimate  transformation  of  the  will  to  power. 

Chapter  XLIV.  The  Crux  of  Christianity  .  .379 

It  is  precisely  in  this  form  of  the  ideal — that  of  the  will  to 
save  men — that  the  profoundest  objection  makes  itself  felt; 
the  ideal  is  fundamentally  presumptuous,  and  becomes  in¬ 
creasingly  impossible  to  contemporary  moral  diffidence  and 
modest  self-consciousness;  this  fact,  however,  is  an  addi¬ 
tional  reason  for  regarding  it  correct  as  an  interpretation 
of  Christianity;  for  this  was  the  ground  for  the  hostility 
provoked  by  the  doctrine  in  its  early  days;  and  the  moral 
difficulty  of  any  ideal  is  hardly  a  final  refutation  of  it; 
what  we  require  of  Christianity  is  that  it  be  responsible  for 
showing  how  the  ideal  is  possible. 

Chapter  XLV.  The  Theory  of  Participation  .  .  383 

The  ‘essence’  of  any  religion  is  to  be  found  not  in  its 
ethical  demand  upon  human  nature,  but  in  its  answer  to  the 
question  stated :  How  is  it  possible  ?  The  demands  of  Chris¬ 
tianity  create  a  logical  dilemma;  the  phenomenon  of  par¬ 
ticipation,  by  any  given  self,  in  the  properties  of  the  object 
known,  may  lead  to  a  solution,  provided  that  the  object 
known  can  be  an  absolute  or  divine  object,  having  the  quali¬ 
ties  and  powers  which  the  individual  cannot  claim  for  him¬ 
self;  the  objection  to  the  phrase  “the  will  to  power”  ad¬ 
mitted,  and  the  term  rendered  finally  harmless;  the  ideal 
of  ‘humility’;  but  the  difficulty  still  remains  that  the  indi¬ 
vidual,  as  imperfect,  cannot  perceive  the  divine  object. 

Chapter  XLVI.  The  Divine  Aggression  .  .  .  392 

The  logical  situation  resumed;  the  idea  of  salvation  from  , 
outside;  in  what  sense  obnoxious,  and  in  what  sense  rea¬ 
sonable;  the  kind  of  theology  by  which  Christianity  meets 
the  situation;  its  large  demands  on  belief;  probability  in 
metaphysics  out  of  place. 


XXVI 


CONTENTS 


Chapter  XLVII.  The  Last  Fact  .  .  .  . 

Whether  the  ultimate  reality  of  the  world  is  such  as  Chris¬ 
tianity  affirms  it  to  be  is  a  question  of  fact;  and  this  ques¬ 
tion  cannot  be  completely  settled  by  philosophical  argu¬ 
ment;  an  act  of  personal  discovery  or  recognition  is  called 
for.  Eecognition  is  a  part  of  the  operation  of  every  in¬ 
stinct;  as  the  food-getting  instinct  recognizes  objects  which 
may  serve  as  food,  so  the  total  instinct  of  man  will 
recognize  what  it  needs  in  the  world  of  metaphysical  reality, 
if  what  it  needs  exists  there ;  conversely,  metaphysical 
‘findings^  are  not  indifferent  theories,  but  are  matters  of 
life  and  death  for  the  human  instincts;  they  form  part  of  the 
circuit  of  instinctive  life;  hence  the  beliefs  men  have  long 
held  are  to  some  extent  corroborated  by  the  fact  that  men 
have  lived  by  them;  but  in  any  actual  belief,  imagination 
may  mingle  with  experienced  fact  in  unknown  proportions; 
our  beliefs  must  be  perpetually  revised  by  the  co-operation 
of  the  mystic  and  the  critic;  meantime  some  guide  to  in¬ 
dividual  judgment  may  be  had  by  historical  analysis,  en¬ 
quiring  what  elements  of  existing  beliefs  have  been  essen¬ 
tial  to  those  developments  of  instinct  which  give  our  civili¬ 
zation  its  characteristic  qualities.  Here  follows  a  rough 
sketch  of  such  an  analysis;  in  which  the  present  war  acts 
as  an  experimental  aid,  by  its  tendency  to  attack  all  merely 
subjective  or  sentimental  beliefs;  it  appears  that  the  belief 
in  a  quasi-maternal  relation  df  the  world  to  human  indi¬ 
viduals,  a  belief  partly  coincident  with  the  metaphysics  of 
Christianity,  has  been  at  the  basis  of  our  civilization;  and 
this  belief,  in  turn,  might  plausibly  be  explained  as  merely 
subjective  or  pragmatic;  objective  support  for  the  belief  in 
question,  men  have  supposed  themselves  to  find  in  the  his¬ 
torical  process  itself,  particularly  in  those  experimental 
sacrifices  which,  though  they  were  deeds  of  individual  men, 
have  seemed  to  carry  an  over-individual  and  authoritative 
significance.  Our  argument  ends  in  pointing  out  the  alter¬ 
natives  presented  to  individual  determination ;  a  negation  of 
the  characteristic  metaphysics  of  Christianity  would  not 
necessarily  destroy  human  happiness:  it  would  discounte¬ 
nance  only  the  highest  aspiration,  and  would  render  futile 
only  the  best  of  the  past. 


402 


Appended  Note 
Index 


417 

429 


PART  I 


ORIENTATION 


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CHAPTER  I 


AN  ART  PECULIAR  TO  MAN 

WE  have  grown  accustomed  to  think  of  Nature 
as  engaged  in  fitting  living  species  to  their 
environments.  The  living  things,  however,  for  their 
part,  are  largely  engaged  in  fitting  their  environments 
to  themselves.  It  is  true  that  Nature  is  inexorable 
and  that  life  is  frail;  but  it  is  also  true  that  Nature 
as  a  servant  is  faithful  and  not  without  amiable  traits, 
while  life  is  infinitely  elastic,  masterful,  and  deter¬ 
mined.  Wherever  in  the  world  we  find  signs  of  con¬ 
scious  activity,  there  we  find  the  world  being  made 
over  into  forms  more  auspicious  for  the  persistent 
ends  of  life.  This  is  what,  in  the  widest  sense,  we  call 
art:  in  this  sense  all  conscious  behavior  is  artful. 

But  man,  I  presume,  is  the  only  animal  that  delib¬ 
erately  undertakes,  while  reshaping  his  outer  world, 
to  reshape  himself  also.  In  meeting  unsatisfactory 
conditions, — hunger,  danger,  or  what  not, — the  simpler 
type  of  mind  has  but  one  argument:  ‘‘There  must  be 
some  change  in  the  facts. The  human  mind  has 
beside  this  argument  another:  “Perhaps  there  should 
be  some  change  in  myself.  If  a  beast  is  threatened, 
it  may  fight  or  fly;  if  a  man  is  threatened,  he  may, 
while  dealing  with  the  facts,  take  issue  also  with  his 
own  fear  or  anger. 


2 


OKIENTATION 


I  do  not  say  that  man  is  the  only  creature  that  has  a 
part  in  its  own  making.  Every  organism  may  be  said 
(with  due  interpretation  of  terms)  to  build  itself,  to 
regenerate  itself  when  injured,  to  recreate  itself  and 
to  reproduce  itself.  But  in  all  likelihood,  it  is  only 
the  human  being  that  does  these  things  with  conscious 
intention,  that  examines  and  revises  his  mental  as  well 
as  his  physical  self,  and  that  proceeds  according  to  a 
preformed  idea  of  what  this  self  should  be.  To  he 
human  is  to  be  self-conscious ;  and  to  he  self-conscious 
is  to  bring  one’s  self  into  the  sphere  of  art,  as  an  object 
to  he  judged,  altered,  improved. 

Human  beings  as  we  find  them  are  accordingly  arti¬ 
ficial  products ;  and  for  better  or  for  worse  they  must 
always  be  such.  Nature  has  made  us:  social  action 
and  our  own  efforts  must  continually  remake  us.  Any 
attempt  to  reject  art  for  ‘^nature”  can  only  result  in 
an  artificial  naturalness  which  is  far  less  genuine  and 
less  pleasing  than  the  natural  work  of  art. 

Further,  as  self-consciousness  varies,  the  amount  or 
degree  of  this  remaking  activity  will  vary.  And  self- 
consciousness  is  on  the  increase.  M.  Bergson  has 
strongly  argued  that  consciousness  (including  self- 
consciousness)  has  no  quantity;^  but  I  must  judge  that 
among  the  extremely  few  respects  in  which  human 

1  Les  donn^es  immediates  de  la  conscience,  ch.  i.  Naturally  one  can 
define  a  situation,  such  as  the  relation  of  being  aware  of  an  object,  of 
which  one  must  say  that  it  either  exists  or  does  not  exist, — without 
variations  of  degree.  Such  is  Natorp^s  interpretation  of  Bewusstheit, 
not  essentially  different,  I  think,  from  the  consciousness  of  which  Berg¬ 
son’s  statements  are  true.  But  such  a  situation  is  palpably  an  abstrac¬ 
tion  from  the  reality  indicated  by  ‘  ‘  consciousness  ’  ’  to  which  Bergson 
himself  wishes  to  call  attention. 


AN  AET  PECULIAR  TO  MAN 


3 


history  shows  luiquestionable  growth  we  must  include 
the  degree  and  range  of  self-consciousness.  The 
gradual  development  of  psychology  as  a  science  and 
the  persistent  advance  of  the  subjective  or  introspec¬ 
tive  element  in  literature  and  in  all  fine  art  are  tokens 
of  this  change.  And  as  a  further  indication  and  result, 
the  art  of  human  reshaping  has  taken  definite  char¬ 
acter,  has  left  its  incidental  beginnings  far  behind,  has 
become  an  institution,  a  group  of  institutions. 

Among  the  earliest  of  men  (if  we  may  trust  our 
powers  of  prehistoric  speculation)  we  can  perceive 
merely  such  sporadic  expressions  of  criticism  and 
admiration  as  pass  perpetually  between  the  members 
of  any  human  group, — acting  then,  as  they  still  act 
upon  ourselves,  like  a  million  mallets  to  fashion  each 
member  somewhat  nearer  to  the  social  heart’s  desire. 
Wherever  a  language  exists,  as  a  magazine  of  estab¬ 
lished  meanings,  there  will  he  found  a  repertoire  of 
epithets  of  praise  and  blame,  at  once  results  and 
implements  of  this  social  process.  The  simple  exist¬ 
ence  of  such  a  vocabulary  acts  as  a  persistent  force; 
but  the  effect  of  current  ideals  is  redoubled  when  a 
coherent  agency,  such  as  public  religion,  assumes  pro¬ 
tection  of  the  most  searching  social  maxims  and  lends 
to  them  the  weight  of  all  time,  all  space,  all  wonder, 
and  all  fear.  For  many  centuries  religion  held  within 
itself  the  ripening  self-knowledge  and  self-discipline  of 
the  human  mind.  Now,  beside  this  original  agency  we 
have  its  offshoots,  politics,  education,  legislation,  the 
penal  art.  And  the  philosophical  sciences,  including 


4 


ORIENTATION 


psychology  and  ethics,  are  the  especial  servants  of 
these  arts. 

The  agencies  have  thus  become  diverse,  and  to  some 
extent  have  lost  touch  with  each  other, — ^until  of  late, 
when  common  difficulties  have  tended  to  remind  them 
here  and  there  of  their  common  origin  and  common 
purpose.  It  is  our  wish  in  this  study  to  concern  our¬ 
selves  with  these  common  and  original  problems, 
enquiring  into  the  raw  material  of  human  nature  with 
which  all  such  agencies  must  work,  and  considering 
in  what  goal  their  various  efforts  should  converge,  and 
what  principles  may  guide  them  to  success. 


CHAPTER  II 


THE  EMERGENCE  OF  PROBLEMS 

For  all  the  agencies  which  are  now  engaged  in 
remaking  mankind,  three  questions  have  become 
vital.  What  is  original  human  nature?  What  do  we 
wish  to  make  of  it!  How  far  is  it  possible  to  make  of 
it  what  we  wish?  / 

I  say  that  these  questions  have  become  vital,  because 
(though  they  sound  like  questions  which  any  wise 
workman  would  consider  before  beginning  his  work) 
they  are  not  in  any  historical  sense  preliminary  ques¬ 
tions.  It  is  always  our  first  assumption  that  we 
already  know  both  what  human  nature  is  and  what 
we  wish  it  to  be.  Nothing  is  more  spontaneous  and 
assured  than  the  social  judgment  which  finds  expres¬ 
sion  in  a  word  of  passing  criticism:  yet  each  such 
judgment  ordinarily  assumes  both  these  items  of 
knowledge.  And  it  assumes,  further,  that  human 
nature  in  the  individual  criticised  could  have  been,  and 
without  more  ado  can  now  become,  what  we  would 
have  it.  If  we  convey  to  our  neighbor  that  he  is 
idle,  or  selfish,  or  unfair,  and  if  he  perceives  our 
meaning,  nothing  but  wilful  failure  to  use  his  own 
powers  (so  our  attitude  declares)  can  account  for  any 
further  continuance  in  these  ways.  Now  and  always, 
all  spontaneous  human  intercourse — a  nest  of  un- 


6 


ORIENTATION 


avowed  assumptions — takes  for  granted  the  cornmon 
knowledge  and  acceptance  of  standards, — at  least  the 
fundamental  ones, — and  their  attainableness.^ 

It  is  only  as  a  result  of  much  failure  in  the  effort 
to  remake  men  that  the  question  of  possibility  gains  a 
status  and  a  hearing.  It  is  this  same  experience  which 
suggests  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  ‘human 
nature,’  offering  a  more  or  less  constant  resistance  to 
the  remaking  process.  These  two  questions,  of  possi¬ 
bility  and  of  original  nature,  are  therefore  not  inde¬ 
pendent  :  we  have  to  consider  the  human  material  just 
because  it  is  this,  primarily,  which  sets  a  limit  to  the 
human  art.  It  may  be  regarded,  I  dare  say,  as  a’  dis¬ 
covery  of  religion  that  there  exists  a  ‘natural  man’ 
who  behaves  as  a  quasi-inevitable  drag  upon  the  flights 
of  the  spirit.  No  agency  could  struggle,  as  religion 
has  struggled,  toward  definiteness  in  its  notions  of 
what  men  ought  to  be  without  at  the  same  time  win¬ 
ning  a  large  experience  of  the  hindrances  to  the 
achievement.  It  lay  in  the  situation  from  which  the 
concept  of  human  nature  arose  that  the  first  picture 
of  the  natural  man  should  be  disparaging.  To  say 
that  mankind  is  by  nature  bad  is,  in  its  origins,  only  a 
more  sophisticated  way  of  saying  that  virtue  is  diffi¬ 
cult. 

1  One  reason  why  conversation  always  assumes  such  knowledge,  and 
such  possibility,  may  be  that  conversation  is  itself  a  momentary  asser¬ 
tion,  and  realization,  of  an  ideal.  In  conversation  the  mind  of  each  has 
laid  aside  its  egoistic  boundary,  as  far  as  the  fact  of  communication 
goes,  and  has  so  far  ‘universalized  itself/ 

A  large  part  of  the  meaning  of  our  ordinary  postulates  of  knowledge 
and  freedom  might  with  advantage  be  stated  in  these  terms:  You.  must 
admit  as  general  principles  whatever  is  implied  in  your  own  act  of 
entering  into  this  community  of  action  which  we  call  conversing. 


THE  EMERGENCE  OF  PROBLEMS 


7 


But  religion  is  by  no  means  alone  in  this  experience^ 
Legislation  and  the  social  sciences  have,  with  becom¬ 
ing  slowness,  and  each  in  its  own  way,  reached  the 
conclusion  that  there  is  a  human  material  to  be  reck¬ 
oned  with,  having  properties  akin  to  inertia,  just  be¬ 
cause  each  has  found  its  original  assumption  of  trans¬ 
parent  rationality  and  freedom  difficult  to  maintain. 
Economics,  in  setting  up  a  typical  man  whose  self- 
devoted  prudence  should  consistently  stand  above 
suspicion,  certainly  postulated  a  very  moderate  degree 
of  virtue  even  for  the  sake  of  the  argument;  but  no 
science  has  more  thoroughly  discarded  its  error,  or 
more  heartily  undertaken  the  task  of  reckoning  with 
the  non-reasoning  strands  in  the  human  fabric. 

Politics,  especially  the  liberal  politics  of  the  past  two 
centuries,  was  inclined  to  build  its  faith  upon  the 
existence  of  a  reasonable  public  and  a  reasonable  gov¬ 
ernment.  But  the  disillusioned — not  disheartened — 
liberalism  of  today  turns  itself  heart  and  soul  to 
psychological  enquiry.  It  perceives  that  there  is  a 
human  nature  which  invites  the  use  of  the  same  prin¬ 
ciple  that  Bacon  applied  to  physical  nature, — some¬ 
thing  having  laws  of  its  own  which  must  be  obediently 
examined  before  we  can  hope  to  control  it.  ^^The 
Great  Society,’’  whether  it  is  to  be  ruled,  or  educated, 
or  saved,  or  simply  lived  in,  has  to  be  taken  as  a  meet¬ 
ing  ground  of  forces  to  which  we  would  better  apply 
the  name  instinctive  or  passional  than  simply  rational. 
Thus  the  experience  of  all  social  enterprises  seems  to 
converge  in  the  common  admission  that  human  nature 


8 


OEIENTATION 


is  a  problem,  because  human  possibility  has  proved 
a  problem. 

But  these  problems  are  not  so  far  identical  that  the 
recognition  of  a  ^nature’  to  be  dealt  with  at  once  closes 
the  question  what  can  be  done  with  it.  On  this  issue 
wide  differences  of  judgment  are  still  possible.  On 
one  side  it  may  be  held  that  this  human  nature  is 
unlimitedly  plastic, — we  can  make  of  it  anything 
within  reason;  at  the  other  extreme  it  may  be  held 
that  it  is  fundamentally  fixed, — we  may  refine  it  and 
polish  it  but  can  change  none  of  its  essential  passions. 
Let  us  look  more  closely  at  the  present  condition  of 
this  discussion. 


CHAPTER  III 


ON  THE  POSSIBILITY  OF  CHANGING  HUMAN 

NATURE 

WE  are  said  to  have  an  immediate  consciousness 
of  freedom,  that  is  to  say,  of  wide  margins  of 
possibility.  If  this  consciousness  could  be  translated 
into  a  definite  proposition,  it  would  presumably  assert 
not  alone  can  do  (within  these  wide  margins)  what 
I  will,^’  but  also,  ‘‘I  can  become  what  I  will.^’  There 
have  been  times  when  this  ‘testimony  of  consciousness’ 
has  carried  much  weight,  even  to  the  point  of  being 
held  decisive;  there  have  been  other  times  when  it 
has  forthwith  been  rejected  as  more  likely  than  not  an 
illusion.  At  present,  there  is  far  less  disposition  to 
believe  that  we  have  within  ourselves  either  a  foun¬ 
tain  of  deception  or  a  fountain  of  finished  truth:  we 
are  inclined  rather  to  question  what  precisely  these 
intuitions  mean,  and  to  seek  that  meaning  in  facts  of 
a  more  objective  order,  such  as  the  structure  of  the 
human  being,  or  his  historic  doings. 

As  to  structure,  human  nature  is  undoubtedly  the 
most  plastic  part  of  the  living  world,  the  most  adapt¬ 
able,  the  most  educable.  Of  all  animals,  it  is  man  in 
whom  heredity  counts  for  least,  and  conscious  build¬ 
ing  forces  for  most.  Consider  that  his  infancy  is  long¬ 
est,  his  instincts  least  fixed,  his  brain  most  unfinished 


10 


ORIENTATION 


at  birth,  his  powers  of  habit-making  and  habit-chang¬ 
ing  most  marked,  his  susceptibility  to  social  impres¬ 
sions  keenest, — and  it  becomes  clear  that  in  every  way 
nature,  as  a  prescriptive  power,  has  provided  in  him 
for  her  own  displacement.  His  major  instincts  and 
passions  first  appear  on  the  scene  not  as  controlling 
forces,  but  as  elements  of  play,  in  a  prolonged  life  of 
play.  Other  creatures  nature  could  largely  finish :  the 
human  creature  must  finish  himself. 

And  as  to  history,  it  cannot  be  said  that  the  results 
of  man ’s  attempts  at  self-modelling  appear  to  belie 
the  liberty  thus  promised  in  his  constitution.  If  he  has 
retired  his  natural  integument  in  favor  of  a  device 
called  clothing,  capable  of  expressing  endless  nuances 
not  alone  of  status  and  wealth,  but  of  temper  and  taste 
as  well, — conservatism  or  venturesomeness,  solemnity, 
gaiety,  profusion,  color,  dignity,  carelessness  or  whim, 
he  has  not  failed  to  fashion  his  inner  self  into  equally 
various  modes  of  character  and  custom.  That  is  a 
hazardous  refutation  of  socialism  which  consists  in 
pointing  out  that  its  success  would  require  a  change 
in  human  nature.  Under  the  spell  of  particular  ideas 
monastic  communities  have  flourished,  in  comparison 
with  whose  demands  upon  human  nature  the  change 
required  by  socialism — so  far  as  it  calls  for  purer 
altruism  and  not  pure  economic  folly — is  trivial.  To 
any  one  who  asserts  as  a  dogma  that  Human  nature 
never  changes,’’  it  is  fair  to  reply,  ^Ht  is  human  nature 
to  change  itself.” 

When  one  reflects  to  what  extent  racial  and  national 
traits  are  manners  of  the  mind,  fixed  by  social  rather 


WHAT  IS  POSSIBLE? 


11 


than  by  physical  heredity,  while  the  bodily  characters 
themselves  may  be  due  in  no  small  measure  to  sexual 
choices  at  first  experimental,  then  imitative,  then  habit¬ 
ual,  one  is  not  disposed  to  think  lightly  of  the  human 
capacity  for  self-modification.  But  it  is  still  possible 
to  be  skeptical  as  to  the  depth  and  permanence  of  any 
changes  which  are  genuinely  voluntary.  Admitting 
the  importance  of  knowing  what  is  possible  by  way  of 
the  curious  or  heroic,  it  is  still  more  important  to  know 
the  level  to  which  all  curves  tend  to  return  after  the 
fortuitous  effort  and  circumstances  are  withdrawn. 
Our  immediate  consciousness  of  freedom  we  may  then 
interpret  as  we  interpret  the  report  of  our  quite  simi¬ 
lar  feeling  of  physical  ability,  i.e.,  as  valid  primarily 
for  the  moment  in  which  it  is  made.  I  feel  just  now 
as  if  I  could  leap  to  any  height,  and  this  feeling  is  by 
no  means  deceptive:  I  could  indeed  do  so  except  for 
the  gravity  of  things  in  this  part  of  space,  which  will 
announce,  in  the  next  moment,  the  level  I  can  reach 
and  where  I  must  come  to  rest.  Likewise,  there  are 
few  maxims  of  conduct,  and  few  laws,  so  contrary  to 
nature  that  they  could  not  be  put  into  momentary 
effect  by  individuals,  or  by  communities.  Platons 
Republic  has  never  been  fairly  tried;  but  fragments 
of  this  and  other  Utopias  have  been  common  enough 
in  history.  No  one  presumes  to  limit  what  men  can 
attempt;  one  only  enquires  what  the  silent  forces  are 
which  determine  what  can  last. 

What,  to  be  explicit,  is  the  possible  future  of  meas¬ 
ures  dealing  with  divorce,  with  war,  with  political  cor¬ 
ruption,  with  prostitution,  with  superstition?  Enthu- 


12 


OEIENTATION 


siastic  idealism  is  too  precious  an  energy  to  be  wasted 
if  we  can  spare  it  false  efforts  by  recognizing  those 
permanent  ingredients  of  our  being  indicated  by  the 
words  pugnacity,  greed,  sex,  fear.  Machiavelli  was 
not  inclined  to  make  little  of  what  an  unhampered 
ruler  could  do  with  his  subjects;  yet  he  saw  in  such 
passions  as  these  a  fixed  limit  to  the  power  of  the 
Prince.  ‘^It  makes  him  hated  above  all  things  to  be 
rapacious,  and  to  be  a  violator  of  the  property  and 
women  of  his  subjects,  from  both  of  which  he  must 
abstain.’’^  And  if  Machiavelli ^s  despotism  meets  its 
master  in  the  undercurrents  of  human  instinct,  gov¬ 
ernments  of  less  determined  stripe,  whether  of  states 
or  of  persons,  would  hardly  do  well  to  treat  these 
ultimate  data  with  less  respect. 

It  is  peculiarly  the  legislator  who  needs  this  wisdom, 
since  he  must  deal  with  masses  and  averages.  And 
there  is,  in  fact,  a  kind  of  official  legislative  pessimism 
or  resignation,  born  of  much  experience  of  the  unequal 
struggle  between  high  aspiration  and  nature,  a  pessi¬ 
mism  found  frequently  in  the  wise  and  great  from 
Solomon  to  this  day.  At  present  it  derives  large  nour¬ 
ishment  from  statistics.  The  secular  steadiness  of  the 
percentages,  let  us  say  of  the  major  crimes,  shows  in 
the  clearest  light  where  the  constant  level  of  no-effort 
lies.  When  Huxley  likened  the  work  of  civilization 
to  the  work  of  the  gardener  with  his  perpetual  war¬ 
fare  against  wildness  and  weeds,  he  pictured  a  philos¬ 
ophy  for  the  legislator.  The  world-wise  lawgiver  will 
respect  the  attainable  and  maintainable  level  of  cul- 

1  The  Prince,  ch.  xix. 


WHAT  IS  POSSIBLE?  13 

ture,  a  level  not  too  far  removed  from  the  stage  of 
no-effort. 

Indeed,  there  are  many  who  believe,  at  present,  that 
our  social  pilots  would  do  well  to  relax  their  strain 
in  the  field  of  conscious  character-building  and  turn 
their  attention  to  the  stock.  If  anything  extensive  is 
to  be  accomplished,  may  not  eugenics  offer  a  better 
prospect  than  eternal  discipline?  The  future  of  the 
race  may  conceivably  be  found  in  a  new  and  scientifi¬ 
cally  developed  aristocracy  of  blood.  (I  say  ^aristoc¬ 
racy,^  because  evidently  under  our  present  arrange¬ 
ments  the  lesser  breeds  will  coexist  with  the  new  stock 
for  some  little  time,  and  the  gap  must  widen  between 
the  two.  How  to  induce  these  rear-guards  to  seek 
Nirvana  in  due  time  is  one  of  the  awkward  problems 
of  the  eugenic  program.) 

How  different  from  this  legislative  pessimism  is  the 
above-mentioned  pessimism  of  religion.  The  greaf^ 
religions  have  spoken  ill  of  original  human  nature ;  but 
they  have  never  despaired  of  its  possibilities.  No 
sacred  scripture  so  far  as  I  know  asserts  that  men  are 
born  Hree  and  equaP;  but  no  accident  of  birth  is  held 
by  the  major  religions  (with  the  notable  exception  of 
Brahmanism)  to  exclude  any  human  being  from  the 
highest  religious  attainment.  In  spite  of  the  revolu¬ 
tionary  character  of  their  standards,  they  are  still, 
for  the  most  part,  committed  to  the  faith  that  these 
standards  are  reachable.  And  they  have  so  far  trusted 
themselves  to  this  faith  that  the  entire  accumulation 
of  scientific  knowledge  regarding  the  determination  of 
character,  regarding  heredity,  and  especially  regard- 


14 


ORIENTATION 


ing  the  instincts,  leaves  them  unmoved.  This  may  be 
a  case  of  the  usual  indifference  of  religion  to  ‘^prog¬ 
ress’’;  but  more  probably  it  is  a  deliberate  rejection 
of  the  view  that  the  horn  part  of  man  is  decisive. 
Religion  declines  to  limit  the  moral  possibility  of 
human  nature. 

Thus  in  the  world  of  practical  endeavor  as  in  the 
world  of  theory  the  two  extreme  positions  in  the  prob¬ 
lem  of  possibility  still  confront  one  another.  One 
might  suppose,  since  the  question  is  a  practical  one, 
that  experience  would  long  ago  have  settled  the  matter. 
And  probably,  if  experience  could  have  settled  the 
matter,  it  would  have  been  settled  long  ago. 

For  after  all,  how  would  you  judge  from  experience 
what  the  possibilities  of  human  nature  are?  All  the 
remaking  agencies,  religion  added,  have  failed  to  make 
a  world  of  saints,  or  any  resemblance  thereof.  True ; 
but  they  have  made  some  saints.  In  a  question  of 
possibility,  negative  experience  counts  for  nothing  if 
there  is  but  a  single  positive  success. 

As  for  the  rest,  their  failure  may  indeed  be  due  to 
their  incapacity.  But  there  are  many  other  conceiv¬ 
able  reasons  for  it,  such  as  lack  of  effort,  lack  of  faith, 
political  pessimism  itself,  and  finally,  lack  of  wish.  Is 
it  altogether  certain  that  the  saint  of  history  is  the 
one  human  success?  To  the  coldly  political  eye,  his 
leaven  seems  to  lose  much  of  its  distinction  ae  it 
spreads  through  the  lump, — as  if  the  role  hardly  fitted 
the  majority.  Indeed,  those  who  pursue  to  the  end  the 
counsels  of  perfection  tear  away  from  the  mass;  and 
the  best  examples  stand  in  splendid  isolation.  May 


WHAT  IS  possible!  ^  15 

it  not  be  true  that  the  goal  of  character  which  seems 
possible  only  to  the  few  is  closed  to  the  many  only  be¬ 
cause  they  cannot  be  brought  wholly  to  desire  it?  A 
revised  conception  of  what  is  desirable  may  bring  a 
revised  view  of  what  is  possible. 

We  turn,  then,  to  consider  the  status  of  our  third 
problem,  What  do  we  wish  to  make  of  human  nature? 


CHAPTER  IV 


WHAT  CHANGES  ARE  DESIRABLE! 
LIBERATION  VERSUS  DISCIPLINE 

OF  all  the  doubts  that  invade  our  primary  assur¬ 
ances,  the  last  to  arise,  and  the  most  disconcert¬ 
ing,  is  the  doubt  whether  we  know  what  we  want.  We 
inhale  our  ideals  as  we  accept  our  mother-tongue :  and 
so  great  is  the  momentum  of  the  vocabulary  of  lauda¬ 
tion  that  it  is  long  before  we  discover  that  not  all  eulo¬ 
gistic  epithets  can  he  embodied  in  one  being, — not  even 
in  a  god.  Mr.  Bosanquet  has  instanced  Palstaif  as 
disproof  of  the  notion  that  right  and  wrong  are  ulti¬ 
mate  qualities  of  the  universe: — for  who  can  approve 
Falstaff’s  principles,  and  yet  who  would  willingly 
consign  him  to  hell!  But  is  not  the  difficulty  this,  that 
the  praiseworthy  and  delightful  qualities  of  Sir  John 
would  be  hard  to  unite  with  certain  other  reputable 
qualities,  such  as  responsibility  and  temperance;  and, 
generally  speaking,  that  among  the  ideals  which  we 
all  accept  seriatim  there  is  conflict!  If  so,  the  natural 
inference  is  simply  that  these  ideals,  taken  one  by  one, 
are  somewhat  false  and  abstract.  Neither  singly  nor 
jointly  do  they  furnish  a  true  picture  of  what  we  wish 
human  nature  to  be;  and,  in  brief,  we  do  not  (concep¬ 
tually)  know  what  we  wish  it  to  be. 

In  this  unavowed  condition  of  groping  ignorance. 


WHAT  IS  DESIRABLE? 


17 


mankind  has  made  (equally  nnavowed)  use  of  certain 
guiding  principles,  among  which  is  this:  that  if  any¬ 
thing  is  impossible,  it  is  not  wholly  desirable.  Every 
failure  to  impress  a  nominal  ideal  upon  human  nature 
works  two  ways:  it  strengthens  the  critics  of  human 
nature,  the  legislative  pessimists,  and  the  rest;  but  it 
also  casts  doubt  upon  the  validity  of  the  nominal  ideal. 
Men  who,  in  quest  of  such  ideals,  have  submitted  to 
much  discipline  have  sometimes  come  to  rebel,  not 
because  they  have  reached  their  limit,  but  because  the 
friction  of  the  process  has  led  them  to  suspect  the 
authority  of  the  goal.  Such  seems  to  have  been  the 
experience  of  the  Buddha,  who  after  six  years  of 
exalted  austerity  in  the  Uruvilva  forest  suddenly 
turned  his  back  upon  his  Brahmanic  guides.  And  such, 
in  another  vein,  may  have  been  the  experience  of  the 
pleadingly  defiant  Omar.  In  such  cases,  when  ‘Nature 
rebels,^  she  rebels  not  as  a  traitor,  but  in  the  name  of 
a  different  conception  of  rightful  rule.  The  average 
man,  I  presume,  has  always  doubted  in  his  reticent 
way  whether  those  counsels  of  perfection  are  alto¬ 
gether  what  they  claim  to  be;  whether  the  gain  in 
brilliance  and  purity  has  not  been  purchased  by  some 
loss  in  the  virtues  of  reality  and  concrete  serviceable¬ 
ness;  whether,  on  the  whole,  something  more  like 
“Follow  Nature’^  may  not  be  a  truer  guide  to  a  wholly 
desirable  human  quality. 

There  have  been  eras  in  history,  eras  of  liberation, 
when  the  general  voice  of  this  average  man  has  set 
itself  against  the  tyranny  of  prevailing  discipline. 
They  have  been  eras  like  the  Eenaissance  in  which  the 


18 


OKIENTATION 


hypocritical  seams  in  the  traditional  strait-jackets 
have  become  especially  visible,  as  well  as  the  too- 
interested  character  of  the  profession  that  men  are 
free  to  become  what  they  are  commanded  to  become. 
But  every  age  has  its  party  and  its  prophet  of  libera¬ 
tion,  its  Eousseau,  its  Schlegel,  its  Whitman,  its 
Nietzsche, — prophets  always  more  or  less  philosophi¬ 
cal,  and  sometimes  political  as  well.  The  principle  of 
the  Liberator  is.  Follow  thine  own  inner  nature, — 
Express  thyself.  As  legislator  he  is  anything  but  a 
pessimist,  not  because  he  thinks  that  the  older  dis¬ 
cipline  is  possible,  but  because  he  thinks  that  what¬ 
ever  ought  to  be  is  possible,  and  that  merely  a  mini¬ 
mum  of  discipline  ought  to  be. 

The  general  influence  of  the  philosophy  of  evolu¬ 
tion  has  been  liberating  in  this  sense.  Not  long  ago, 
Spencer  deduced  from  his  Biological  View^^  the 
obvious  doctrine  of  any  naturalistic  ethics,  that  (other 
things  being  equal)  all  ‘functions’  ought  to  be  exer¬ 
cised.  For  what  else  do  functions  exist  but  to  be 
exercised!  There  is  a  flattering  piety  in  thus  follow¬ 
ing  the  intentions  of  Nature,  which  are,  besides,  much 
more  certainly  decipherable  than  the  other  oracles  of 
God.  It  is  true,  we  are  obliged  to  do.  a  certain  amount 
of  guessing:  but  at  least  one  trend  of  Nature 
may  unhesitatingly  be  affirmed, — a  tendency  to  the 
increase  of  life,  measured  in  terms  of  these  functional 
activities.  The  rule  for  human  culture  takes  a  shape 
like  the  rule  of  the  medical  art :  Eegard  life  as  a  quan¬ 
tity;  conserve  and  increase  it;  avoid  all  forms  of 
repression. 


WHAT  IS  DESIRABLE? 


19 


The  evil  of  repression — an  inevitable  accompani¬ 
ment  of  discipline — is  primarily  simply  that  it  is 
repression,  i.e.,  subtraction  from  life.  But  beside  this 
quantitative  evil,  we  are  assured  by  Freud  and  bis 
school  that  repression  is  the  root  of  numerous  psychi¬ 
cal  disorders.  Freud’s  importance  to  the  cause  of 
liberation  lies  in  his  showing  the  very  mechanism  of 
the  process  by  which  the  ignoring  of  Nature  is  pun¬ 
ished.  The  rule  of  life  which  these  researches  imme¬ 
diately  suggest  is  formulated  by  Professor  Holt  in 
his  recent  book.  The  Freudian  Wish,  a  simple  but 
universal  technique  for  the  release  of  instinctive  ener¬ 
gies  and  the  solution  of  conflicts.  The  ethical  prob¬ 
lem  reduces  to  this :  to  find  such  a  mode  of  satisfying 
any  wish  that  all  other  wishes  may  also  be  satisfied. 
This  is  clearly  the  principle  of  a  democratic  society 
applied  to  human  desires.  The  only  admissible  remak¬ 
ing  in  a  regime  of  this  sort  is  such  mutual  adjustment 
of  the  methods  of  satisfaction  that  our  numerous 
impulses  may  live  together  in  harmony.  The  sacrifi¬ 
cial  choices  of  the  older  discipline  are  not  merely 
unintelligent;  they  are  immoral. 

It  is  clear  that  the  freedom  which  interests  these 
prophets  of  liberation  is  not  the  freedom  to  control 
and  modify  desire:  it  is  the  freedom  to  assert  desire 
as  we  find  it  in  human  nature.  If  we  affect  freedom 
in  the  former  sense,  a  freedom  which  can  only  be  dis¬ 
played  by  submitting  to  self-imposed  demands,  we  do 
but  punish  ourselves.  Such  freedom  is  no  more  than 
a  Quixotic  liberty  to  imprison  our  own  nature.  The 
rights  of  self-government  are  not  properly  to  be 


20 


ORIENTATION 


vested  in  any  such  transcendent  ‘ruling  faculty’  as 
the  Stoics  tried  to  enthrone:  these  rights  should  lie 
with  those  primary  impulses  which  emerge,  with  life 
itself,  from  mother  earth. 

It  might  be  imagined  that  the  religions  of  redemp¬ 
tion,  with  their  demands  of  rebirth,  would  find  them¬ 
selves  at  odds  with  the  Liberators.  And  so,  to  some 
extent,  it  has  been.  But  the  Liberator  is  mediatory, 
and  can  offer  an  interpretation  of  regeneration  itself, 
such  as  liberal  phases  of  religion  are  not  wholly  dis¬ 
inclined  to  consider.  Let  us  say  that  ‘to  save’  means 
simply  ‘not  to  waste,’ — not  to  destroy,  not  to  lose. 
Eegard  religion,  then,  together  with  ethics,  as  a  gen¬ 
eral  economy  of  life,  having  definite  applications  in  the 
field  of  public  justice.^  The  work  of  religion  is  to  con¬ 
serve  a  maximum  of  energy,  of  value,  of  experience; 
to  prevent  friction  and  mutilation,  to  turn  all  things 
to  account.  A  large  part  of  the  older  meaning  of  con¬ 
version,  it  is  true,  must  be  emptied  out.  Into  this 
view,  no  ‘twice-born-ness’  of  the  type  depicted  by 
William  James  can  be  admitted:  the  precursory  sick¬ 
ness  of  soul,  the  horror  of  being  cosmically  lost,  are 
outgrown  trials.  The  way  of  the  mystics,  wherein 
overcoming  the  world  meant  mortifying  the  flesh,  is 
no  longer  to  be  followed.  Hell  has  burned  out:  for 
God,  liimself  remade  in  the  image  of  the  expansive 
spirit,  is  no  longer  thought  of  as  one  who  can  whole¬ 
heartedly  exclude  any  individual  or  denounce  any 
thing.  The  ‘agonized  conscience’  of  our  forefathers 

1  As  in  the  recent  writings  of  Professor  T.  N.  Carver,  The  Religion 
Worth  Having;  Essays  in  Social  Justice. 


WHAT  IS  desirable!  21 

may  be  gently  ridiculed  as  the  passing  gesture  of  a 
‘genteel  tradition,’  now  empty  of  vitality. 

In  truth,  it  has  been  faring  rather  ill  with  the  parti¬ 
sans  of  discipline  among  ns.  The  temper  of  our  own 
society,  of  America,  is  expansive :  it  is  for  giving  liber¬ 
ties  to  everything  that  can  show  a  claim  of  right;  it 
is  partial  to  the  under  dog, — and  are  not  the  primitive 
passions  the  under  dog  in  our  psychical  charade! 

Nevertheless,  we  are  becoming  conscious  that  our 
liberalism  is  at  loose  ends ;  and  a  hunger  for  discipline 
is  showing  itself  in  various  quarters, — in  politics,  in 
education,  in  the  administration  of  justice,  in  provi¬ 
sion  for  defence.  The  complete  view  of  what  we  desire 
in  human  nature  does  not  lie  with  contemporary 
Eomanticism:  so  much  we  learn  through  our  own 
experience.^ 

And  what  we  thus  learn  is  being  borne  out,  I  believe, 
by  what  we  are  learning  as  spectators  of  events  in 
Europe.  It  has  been  asserted,  and  denied,  that  the 
Prussian  policy  is  the  embodiment  of  Nietzscheanism : 
and  it  should  be  clear  enough  that  the  teachings  of 
Nietzsche  have  no  direct  political  connection  with  the 
present  struggle.^  But  it  is  wholly  idle  to  argue  away 

2  Perhaps  there  is  an  element  of  immodesty  in  the  title  of  The 
Unpopular  Review, — the  kind  of  immodesty  that  led  Elijah  of  old  to 
complain  to  the  Lord,  ‘‘I,  even  I  only,  am  left;  and  they  seek  my  life, 
to  take  it  away. ’’  However,  the  Review  has  probably  no  disposition  to 
insist  on  proving  its  claim  to  the  title  by  dying  out.  Beside  being  the 
voice  of  the  many  who  are  ready  to  subscribe  to  the  creed  (and  the 
magazine)  of  Mr.  Holt,  Mr.  More,  Mr.  Mather,  and  their  collaborators, 
it  must  be  recognized  also  that  the  call  for  a  goodly  degree  of  discipline 
is  the  voice  of  the  persistent  if  sometimes  subconscious  common  sense 
of  our  racial  stock. 

3  Historically  speaking,  the  economic  historians  of  Germany,  chief 


22 


OKIENTATION 


the  fact  that  his  words  have  coined  the  inmost  principle 
of  many  of  onr  contemporaries  on  European  soil,  and 
faithfully  represent  to  the  world  a  theory  of  conduct 
which,  while  they  have  not  caused,  they  have  mightily 
reinforced.  The  natural  man  of  the  Nietzschean  ideal 
is  a  very  different  person  from  the  natural  man  of 
Rousseau:  he  is  far  more  strenuous,  far  more  ac¬ 
quainted  with  pain  and  hardness.  But  like  his  prede¬ 
cessor,  he  finds  his  law  within  himself,  and  defines  his 
good  as  the  venting  of  his  energies  upon  the  world. 
He  is  a  hater  of  Christianity  chiefly  because  Chris¬ 
tianity  seems  to  him  to  curb  the  salutary  surgical 
processes  of  nature — his  surgery.  He  has  the  grim 
optimism  which  most  rejoices  to  proclaim  the  goodness 
of  things  when  it  finds  the  world  red  in  fang  and 
claw — his  fang  and  claw.  The  hero  of  Nietzsche  is  not 
converted,  and  he  rejoices  in  his  non-conversion.  We 
now  have,  I  say,  an  immense  demonstration  of  the 
working  of  his  type  of  liberation.  And  we,  who  look 
on,  and  who  have  made  use  of  that  same  faith  in  our 
own  public  and  economic  life,  cannot  quit  ourselves 
of  taking  part  in  the  process  by  which  the  whole 
Western  world  in  horror  and  lamentation  shall  revise 
its  judgment. 

Meantime  we  discover  an  element  of  this  revision 
in  the  inner  life  of  the  same  nation  whose  international 
behavior  has  chiefly  displayed  the  error.  For  the 
prowess  of  Germany,  so  far  as  it  is  due  to  the  willing 

among  them  Schmoller,  have  far  more  directly  influenced  the  shape  of 
German  Weltpolitik  than  any  philosopher,  or  than  Treitschke  or  Bern- 
hardi,  whose  writings  are  merely  symptomatic. 


WHAT  IS  desirable! 


23 


discipline  of  her  own  people,  commands  an  admiration 
which  has  not  failed  to  enter  the  soul  of  her  most 
vehement  critics;  and  just  this  admiration  may  have 
been  needed  to  present  the  cause  of  discipline  with 
adequate  force  to  our  own  too  complacent  tempers. 


CHAPTER  V 


THE  LIBERATOR  AS  DISCIPLINARIAN 

WE  have  been  doing  Ronssean  the  usual  injus¬ 
tice  in  classing  him  with  the  liberators  pure 
and  simple.  Rousseau  lived  to  see  and  thoroughly 
fear  the  fallacies  of  his  early  cult  of  Nature.  And 
had  the  French  public  been  as  susceptible  to  his 
words  upon  this  point  in  The  Social  Contract  as  to 
those  of  the  Dijon  Prize  Essay,  the  excesses  of  the 
Revolution,  if  they  had  still  occurred,  could  never  by 
use  of  his  name  have  ridden  to  their  fall.  By  1762  he 
was  ready  to  put  the  case  in  this  way: 

The  passage  from  the  state  of  nature  to  the  civil  state 
produces  a  very  remarkable  change  in  man,  by  substituting 
justice  for  instinct  in  his  conduct,  and  giving  his  actions  the 
morality  they  formerly  lacked.  .  .  . 

Let  us  draw  up  the  whole  account  in  terms  easily  compared. 
What  man  loses  by  the  social  contract  is  his  natural  liberty, 
and  an  unlimited  right  to  everything  he  tries  to  get  and 
succeeds  in  getting.  What  he  gains  is  civil  liberty,  and  the 
proprietorship  of  all  he  possesses. 

We  might  add  over  and  above  all  this  to  what  man  acquires 
in  the  civil  state,  moral  liberty,  which  alone  makes  him  truly 
master  of  himself.  For  the  mere  impulse  of  appetite  is 
slavery;  while  obedience  to  a  law  which  we  prescribe  to 
ourselves  is  liberty.^ 

1  The  Social  Contract,  Book  I,  ch.  viii. 


THE  LIBERATOR  AS  DISCIPLINARIAN  25 

Eousseau  had  experienced  something  like  an  intel¬ 
lectual  conversion;  and  for  our  present  purposes  we 
should  like  to  know  more  about  the  logic  of  it.  But 
we  shall  learn  less  on  this  point  from  Rousseau  than 
from  other  examples  of  the  same  process. 

Germany,  in  the  short  interval  between  Kant’s 
Critique  of  Practical  Reason  and  Hegel’s  Philosophy 
of  Right  passed  in  ponderous  and  explicit  argument 
through  the  entire  gamut  of  these  changes.  Kant  is 
the  unmatched  exponent  of  the  cause  of  discipline, 
perfect  prey,  therefore,  for  an  entire  school  of  roman¬ 
tic  liberators.  It  remained  for  Hegel,  imbibing  all 
that  was  valid  in  the  Romantic  movement,  to  fan  into 
an  impressive  flame  the  embers  of  Rousseau’s  genius. 
Hegel  had  no  crusade  to  preach  against  human 
instinct:  Kant’s  idea  of  a  transcendent  autocrat  in  the 
shape  of  formal  duty  found  little  response  in  him. 
Disjunctive  choices,  the  either-or’s  of  life,  are  wrong 
choices;  right  decision,  he  thought,  reaches  a  synthe¬ 
sis,  a  hoth-and.  So  far,  Hegel  is  of  one  voice  with 
Romanticism, — also  with  Freud  and  Holt. 

But  what  Hegel  saw  (as  Romanticism  did  not)  is  that 
this  original  nature  of  ours  which  is  to  be  given  its 
liberty  is  something  very  different  from  a  bundle  of 
co-ordinate  wishes.  It  is  quite  as  much  a  bundle  of 
thoughts  or  ideas,  with  demands  of  their  own.  Of 
all  the  primitive  elements  in  man,  the  deepest-  are  his 
reflective  and  social  dispositions;  and  if  they  are  to 
have  any  freedom  at  all,  they  will  impose  a  certain 
order  upon  his  goings.  Like  the  talent  of  an  architect 
which  can  find  complete  scope  only  in  productions 


26 


ORIENTATION 


having  a  substance  and  system  of  their  own,  so  these 
general  human  talents  can  find  scope  only  in  the  law 
and  custom  of  a  social  order.  What  man  is,  thinks 
Hegel,  is  best  described  by  the  word  ‘spirit,’  and  if 
this  is  true,  human  freedom,  like  the  freedom  of  the 
Absolute  Spirit  in  creating  the  world,  will  take  con¬ 
crete  shape,  and  will  look  very  much  like  submitting 
to  bondage.  Human  nature  can  only  blossom  out 
under  various  forms  of  discipline,  such  as  we  find  in 
the  economic  order,  the  family,  the  state :  without  con¬ 
formity  to  some  rule,  no  liberty. 

So  far,  Hegel’s  point  is  well  taken;  yet  Hegel  has 
failed  to  convince  the  world  at  large  that  his  variety 
of  liberty  is  genuine.  He  has  failed  to  convince,  not 
because  he  seemed  to  have  in  mind  the  Prussian  order 
rather  than  the  French  or  the  British  order,  but  be- 
calise  he  supplied  no  clear  way  of  distinguishing 
behveen  a  better  order  and  a  worse.  Agreed  that  only 
a  full  set  of  social  regulations  can  set  us  adequately 
free,  it  still  makes  an  immense  difference  how  those 
functions  are  adjusted, — all  the  difference  between  a 
conformity  that  is  far  ahead  of,  and  one  that  is  far 
behind,  the  freedom  of  nature.  It  is  the  lack  of  a 
sharp  and  usable  criterion  in  Hegel’s  thought  which 
has  given  the  seven  devils  their  opportunity.  To 
advise  an  uncritical  acceptance  of  the  status  quo  was 
probably  no  more  Hegel’s  intention  than  it  was  the 
intention  of  Burke  when  he  celebrated  the  value  of 
prejudice  as  a  source  of  English  stability  and  strength. 
But  both  thinkers  were  so  mightily  impressed  by  the 
fact  that  existence,  historical  existence,  Wirklichkeit, 


THE  LIBEKATOR  AS  DISCIPLINARIAN  27 

is  the  great  and  fundamental  merit,  that  both  neglected 
to  save  themselves  from  the  appearance  of  endorsing 
whatever  thus  exists  because  it  is  actually  there.  We 
shall  therefore  dwell  no  longer  on  Hegel.  In  him, 
German  liberation  had  turned  disciplinarian;  but  his 
failure  to  make  connection  with  the  needs  of  an  ex¬ 
panding  popular  and  industrial  life  in  Germany,  like 
the  failure  of  Burke  to  appreciate  the  demand  for 
reform  in  England,  made  it  necessary  for  the  next 
century  to  work  out  the  same  problem  in  another  key. 

It  is  precisely  this,  then,  that  our  own  naturalism  and 
liberalism  have  been  doing.  They  have  tried  to  make 
thorough  and  literal  earnest  of  the  proposal  to  set 
human  nature  free,  and  have  accordingly  been  drawn 
into  the  attempt  to  set  up  a  thorough  and  literal  inven¬ 
tory  of  all  the  ingredients  of  human  nature,  all  the 
instincts  that  are  to  be  satisfied.  It  is  not  surprising 
that  they  have  found,  as  Hegel  found,  certain  propen¬ 
sities  which  could  hardly  be  appeased  without  being 
allowed  to  assume  control  of  the  other  propensities. 
There  are  some  elements  of  human  nature  whose  lib¬ 
eration  is  discipline.  It  cannot  be  said  that  there  is 
agreement  among  our  empirical  students  of  human 
nature  what  these  controlling  functions  are ;  but  it  has 
become  evident  that  our  gregarious  tendencies,  our 
sexual  and  parental  tendencies,  and  our  curiosity,  are 
not  interests  simply  co-ordinate  with  our  food-getting 
and  defensive  dispositions,  to  be  somehow  averaged  or 
synthesized  with  them.  Satisfaction,  for  them,  means 
organizing  the  whole  life  on  their  own  principle. 

It  is  an  element  of  strength  in  Nietzsche’s  philosophy 


28 


ORIENTATION 


that  he  not  only  sees  this  conclusion  but  seizes  it,  and 
builds  on  it.  He  revolts  against  the  discipline  of 
Christianity,  that  is  true:  but  he  revolts  still  more 
against  an  amiable  and  indiscriminate  expansionism.^ 
His  type  of  liberation  was  one  that  demanded  the  ut¬ 
most  severity  of  self-pruning,  because  he  proposed  to 
give  freedom  to  one  of  the  masterful  elements  of  human 
nature.  Geist,  he  said,  ist  das  Leben  das  selher  ins 
Leben  schneidet;  and  almost  furiously,  in  his  demand 
for  the  sacrifice  of  the  unfit  in  self  as  well  as  in  others, 
he  parodies  the  Christian  paradox  that  life  is  to  be 
saved  by  losing  it. 

Thus  Nietzsche  expresses,  though  in  characteristic¬ 
ally  violent  speech,  the  logical  outcome  of  nineteenth 
century  naturalism.  As  a  goal  for  the  remaking 
process  no  superman  yet  depicted  can  hold  our  com¬ 
plete  allegiance:  but  so  much  can  be  said, — that  our 
question  can  no  longer  be  between  discipline  and 
liberation ;  it  can  only  be  a  question  of  what  discipline 
we  shall  have.  And  according  to  this  naturalism,  the 
answer  would  depend  on  determining  what  ingredient 
of  our  original  nature  it  is  which  has  the  function  and 
the  right  to  control  the  rest  of  our  original  nature. 
The  pure  liberators  have  gone. 

2  For  this  reason,  Professor  Irving  Babbitt’s  classing  of  Nietzsche 
with  Rousseau  as  a  romanticist,  in  his  vigorous  and  enlightening  Masters 
of  Modern  French  Criticism,  seems  to  me  a  partial  truth  which  is  in 
danger  of  missing  what  is  most  characteristic  in  Nietzsche’s  thought. 
No  one  has  painted  the  type  of  the  nineteenth  century  liberator  more 
vividly  than  has  Professor  Babbitt  in  this  book. 


CHAPTER  VI 


AN  INDEPENDENT  STANDARD 

IN  a  century  of  thinking,  then,  we  have  made  head¬ 
way.  But  with  all  that  we  have  learned  or  are 
likely  to  learn  about  our  own  nature,  it  is  far  from 
clear  that  we  can  expect  to  discover  by  empirical 
survey  what  positively  and  definitely  we  want  to  make 
of  ourselves.^  It  is  one  thing  to  have  outgrown  all 
faith  in  any  romanticism  which  excludes  discipline  or 
in  any  discipline  which  ignores  nature:  it  is  quite 
another  thing  to  find  in  following  nature  or  any  part 
of  nature  a  sufficient  guide.  There  was  a  group  of 
schoolmen  who  taught  that  faith,  without  being  con¬ 
trary  to  reason,  is  beyond  reason:  there  is  a  similar 
logical  possibility  that  the  goal  of  human  remaking, 
without  being  contrary  to  nature,  is  beyond  nature. 

And  what  logic  suggests,  experience  seem^  to  bear 
out.  No  clear  oracle  has  been  received  so  far  on  the 
leading  question.  Just  what  is  it,  after  all,  that 
^ nature^  would  have  us  become?  If  we  make  the 
experiment  of  putting  4nstincP  in  control  of  our 

1  This  would  amount  to  merging  our  third  problem,  that  of  the  goal 
of  remaking,  with  our  first,  that  of  the  original  material.  No  doubt 
the  three  problems  are  thus  interdependent,  the  complete  solution  of 
each  one  waiting  for  that  of  the  others,  so  that  in  the  historical  growth 
of  knowledge,  all  three  must  be  driven  abreast.  But  the  logical  effect 
of  considerations  of  fact  upon  questions  of  ideal  is  rather  to  exclude 
errors  than  to  provide  positive  hypotheses. 


30 


OEIENTATION 


behavior,  we  shortly  discover  that  the  dictates  not 
alone  of  instinct  in  general  but  of  every  particular 
instinct  are  ambiguous:  instinct,  as  guide,  shows  a 
fatal  lack  of  sense  of  direction,  and  one  suspects  that 
even  where  it  seems  to  show  the  way  it  is  covertly 
depending  on  counsel  from  another  source.  The 
attempt  to  follow  a  leader  that  cannot  lead  may  com¬ 
pel  the  discovery  that  our  real  guidance  is  to  be  sought 
elsewhere.  This  need  not  mean  that  the  pretender 
should  be  slaughtered,  nor  even  excluded  from  the 
company;  he  need  only  fall  in  behind  the  new  guide. 
Nature  may  well  exercise  a  veto  power,  or  a  second¬ 
ing  power,  without  having  the  capacity  to  make  defi¬ 
nite  positive  proposals.  If  there  is  anything  in  these 
surmises,  we  should  have  to  look  beyond  human 
nature  itself  for  the  thing  which  human  nature  should 
become. 

Such  an  attitude  toward  nature,  considerate,  yet 
independent,  appears  in  the  ethical  thought  of  Plato, 
and  in  his  theory  of  education.  For  Plato,  the  goal 
of  education,  as  of  philosophy  and  religion,  was  the 
attainment  of  a  blessed  vision,  a  state  of  insight  into 
things  as  they  are.  The  conditions  for  attaining  this 
goal  included  the  ascent  of  an  intellectual  ladder,  the 
dialectic;  but  they  involved  also  a  purgation  of  the 
desires,  a  genuine  remaking  of  the  natural  man.  The 
original  love  for  particulars  and  sensible  objects  must 
be  transformed  into  a  love  of  the  universal  and  abso¬ 
lute.  It  is  clear  that  a  goal  of  this  description  cannot 
be  deduced  from  the  rule  of  any  social  instinct,  nor 
of  any  other  instinct  observable  in  the  primitive 


AN  INDEPENDENT  STANDARD 


31 


human  animal.  And  Plato  has  often  been  regarded  as 
thoroughly  hostile  to  the  empirical  side  of  human 
nature.  It  has  commonly  been  thought  that  the  dual¬ 
ism  of  Christian  anthropology,  with  the  excessive  self¬ 
distrust  of  mediaeval  piety,  traced  largely  to  him.  But 
while  Plato  was  unquestionably  an  aristocrat  in  his 
attitude  toward  the  ^senses,’  what  he  required  of  the 
natural  impulses  was  far  more  like  ‘  sublimation  ’  than 
like  ^repression.’  No  one  can  read  The  Banquet  in 
the  light  of  recent  psychology  without  realizing  how 
completely  Plato  understood  the  transformability  of 
passions  and  desires;  and  how  completely  in  his  view 
of  the  goal  of  human  endeavor  the  original  fund  of 
desire — considered  as  a  quantity — ^was  saved.  Fori 
him  there  existed  a  single  passion,  neither  unnatural, 
nor  yet  given  by  nature,  into  which  all  our  various  ‘ 
natural  impulses  are  to  be  emptied  and  translated. 

Plato,  I  must  judge,  was  not  hostile  to  nature.  But 
he  had  certainly  not  lost  the  power  of  exclusion.  And 
it  is  not  out  of  the  question  that  liberal  religion,  too 
far  acquiescent  in  the  amiable  expressionism  of  the 
day,  may  regain  significance  for  its  concepts  of  evil 
and  conversion  or  rebirth  through  a  new  contact  with 
the  immortal  Greek.  For  Plato  could  still  liken  the 
philosophic  life  to  the  pursuit  of  death.  The  direc¬ 
tion  of  our  remaking  effort  he  conceived  to  be  as  dis¬ 
tinct  from  the  natural  slope  of  our  minds  as,  in  the 
philosophy  of  Bergson,  intuition  is  distinct.  In  Plato’s 
universe,  death  and  matter  and  night  are  still  reali¬ 
ties  ;  and  the  destiny  of  souls  has  still  its  infinite  perils ; 


32 


ORIENTATION 


terror  and  repentance  are  rational  aspects  of  expe¬ 
rience;  the  way  to  life  leads  through  a  strait  gate. 

1  need  not  have  gone  hack  to  Plato  to  find  an  illus¬ 
tration  of  the  doctrine  of  the  standard  which  is  inde¬ 
pendent  without  being  ruthless  in  its  disciplinary  de¬ 
mands.  Nor  yet  to  Spinoza,  who  sought  to  preserve 
and  yet  merge  all  passions  in  the  sense  of  necessity,  the 
intellectual  love  of  God.  Thinkers  have  always  existed 
who  have  found  the  following  of  ‘nature^  as  vague  and 
inconclusive  as  the  following  of  fixed  law  is  schematic 
and  unreal.  At  the  present  moment,  there  are  those 
who  seek  ethical  and  educational  wisdom  in  a  general 
‘Gheory  of  value.  Such  a  theory  must  give  an 
account  of  what  is  common  to  all  the  different  goods 
in  the  world,  i.e.,  to  all  things  whatever  that  appeal  to 
the  human  being  as  having  worth  or  interest.  And  if 
it  looks  inward,  to  the  valuer,  and  backward,  to  the 
origins,  it  will  be  likely  to  ascribe  them  all  to  Reel¬ 
ing,  ^  or  ^desire,’  or  Gnstincff;  and  a  theory  of  libera¬ 
tion  will  emerge  merely  from  the  method  of  attack  on 
the  problem.  If,  however,  it  looks  outward,  to  the 
objects  of  value,  and  forward,  to  their  standards^  it 
is  likely  to  find  itself  dealing  with  an  ultimate  court 
which  gives  laws  to  nature,  rather  than  receiving  laws 
from  nature.^ 

2  For  the  most  part,  present  writers  seek  to  refer  the  phenomenon  of 
the  ‘  normativeness  ^  of  our  values  to  some  unity  within  the  self,  some 
‘^Einheit  der  Gefiihlslage,  ^  ’  not  defined  directly  in  terms  of  the  several 
elements  unified.  To  some  it  appears  as  ‘the  will’  (H.  Schwartz,  Psy¬ 
chologic  des  Willens;  W.  Wundt;  H.  Miinsterberg,  etc.);  to  others  as 
‘personality’  (Lipps,  Dis  ethische  Grundprobleme,  ch.  i;  A.  Eiehl, 
Einfiihrung  in  die  Philosophic;  M.  Eeischle,  Werturteile  und  Glaubens- 
urteile,  referring  all  values  to  a  Gesammt-ich-Gefiihl;  C.  Sigwart) ; 


AN  INDEPENDENT  STANDAKD 


33 


We  shall  he  prepared,  then,  to  find  that  that  which 
guides  our  wishes  and  instigates  all  the  remaking  is 
a  spark  not  lighted  in  ‘nature,^  as  we  commonly 
understand  the  term.  But  if  there  he  any  such  inde¬ 
pendent  source  of  standards, — and  we  shall  not  here 
prejudge  the  question, — a  study  of  the  facts  of  human 
•nature,  and  of  the  ways  in  which  various  agencies  do 
in  fact  work  upon  it,  should  make  that  further  fact 
apparent.  For  what  we  are  must  at  least  conspire  in 
our  own  remaking  with  any  independent  principle; 
and  with  what  we  at  first  take  to  be  the  ^leadings  of 
nature,’  any  such  foreign  impulse  will  no  doubt  be 
mixed.  If  it  exists,  it  may  be  expected  to  reveal  itself 
in  the  course  of  our  empirical  labor.  Without  attempt¬ 
ing  therefore  a  prior  critique  of  pure  will,  we  may 
now  address  ourselves  to  that  labor. 

to  others  as  some  function  of  reason  or  logic  (A.  Meinong,  Psychologisch- 
ethische  Untersuchungen,  whose  reference  of  moral  values  to  a  conceptual 
impartial  spectator  revives  memories  of  Adam  Smith;  J.  C.  Kriebig, 
Psychologische  Grundlage  eines  Systems  der  Werttheorie;  W.  Urban, 
Valuation,  Its  Nature  and  Its  Laws).  Yet  again,  there  is  here  and 
there  a  tendency  to  abandon  the  search  within  the  self  and  to  refer  the 
whole  matter  of  ultimate  standards  to  the  structure  of  the  world  we  live 
in,  or  to  the  conditions  for  improving  the  race  (P.  Goldscheid,  Zur  Ethik 
des  Gesammtwillens,  also  Entwickelungswerttheorie,  etc.,  Leipzig,  1908). 


PART  II 


THE  NATURAL  MAN 


CHAPTER  VII 


THE  ELEMENTS  OF  HUMAN  NATURE : 

THE  NOTION  OF  INSTINCT 

IT  is  no  longer  possible  to  share  the  confidence  of 
Hobbes  or  of  Rousseau  that  original  human  nature, 
in  distinction  from  all  that  education  and  civil  life  have 
made  of  it,  can  forthwith  be  described.  Certainly  not 
by  direct  introspection  can  any  man  draw  the  line  be¬ 
tween  what  is  natural  and  what  is  artificial  in  himself. 
Neither  can  we  find  examples  of  the  unaffected  natural 
state :  there  are  solitary  wasps,  but  there  are  no  soli¬ 
tary  human  infants ;  and  with  the  first  social  exchange 
the  original  self  is  overlaid.  Further,  this  very  modi¬ 
fication  of  early  character  by  training  is  a  condition 
for  the  normal  appearance  of  later  dispositions;  an 
experimental  isolation  of  a  human  being  for  the  sake 
of  observing  his  natural  behavior  would  thus  be  self- 
defeating. 

Our  idea  of  our  own  nature,  therefore,  must  always 
be  a  result  of  abstraction.  We  have  to  reach  it  as  we 
reach  other  inseparable  units, — namely,  by  framing  j 
hypothetical  definitions  of  elements  that  seem  to  show 
a  degree  of  constancy,  and  allowing  these  formulae  to 
show  their  power,  or  lack  of  power,  to  express  simply 
the  facts  of  experience.  An  instinct  ^  is  such  an 
hypothetical  unit. 


38 


THE  NATUKAL.  MAN 


The  notion  of  instinct  is  a  survival  of  a  long  his¬ 
tory,  a  survival  of  much  rough  usage  (such  as  the 
attempt  to  indicate  in  a  single  word  the  difference  be¬ 
tween  man  and  the  animals),  a  vagabond  concept, 
which  has  gained  scientific  standing  only  because  it  is 
indispensable.  And  it  is  indispensable  only  because 
all  sciences  which  are  concerned  with  human  behavior, 
whether  psychology,  or  psychiatry,  or  the  social 
sciences  above  alluded  to,  are  obliged  to  mould  their 
ideas  very  largely  by  the  aid  of  biology.  Thus,  our 
best  clue  to  original  human  nature  is  found  in  studies 
of  heredity — the  narrow  gateway  through  which  ^na¬ 
ture’  is  transmitted;  and  our  knowledge  of  heredity  is 
governed  by  biological  conceptions.  When  we  enquire 
how  character  is  transmitted,  we  are  asked  to  picture 
a  group  of  ‘  dispositions  ’  which  take  on  the  physiologi¬ 
cal  form  of  ‘reflex  arcs^ — the  simple  nervous  mechan¬ 
ism  through  which  a  specific  ‘stimulus^  awakens  a 
specific  ‘response.’  If  we  accept  the  reflex  arc  as  the 
beginning  of  wisdom  in  the  biology  of  behavior,  we 
shall  find  it  useful  to  distinguish  between  simple  re¬ 
flexes  and  complex  groupings  of  reflexes — and  we  have 
arrived  at  the  notion  of  instinct. 

For  as  the  biologist  sees  it,  an  instinct  is  but  a  group 
of  reflexes  whose  parts  follow  a  regular  serial  order 
to  a  significant  conclusion.  The  serial  order  is  appar¬ 
ent  in  any  of  the  conspicuous  animal  instincts,  as  nest¬ 
building  or  wooing  and  mating;  or  in  such  a  sequence 
as  carrying  objects  to  the  mouth,  chewing  and  swallow¬ 
ing,  at  that  point  in  the  seven  ages  of  man  when  these 
actions  are  still  instinctive.  The  mechanism  of  the 


THE  liTOTION  OF  INSTINCT 


39 


serial  arrangement  is  also  fairly  obvious:  the  conclu¬ 
sion  of  one  stage  of  the  process  furnishes  the  stimulus, 
or  a  necessary  part  of  the  stimulus,  for  the  next  stage. 
Thus,  in  general,  the  series  can  follow  but  one  order; 
and  when  once  begun  tends  to  continue  to  the  end.  In 
many  instincts,  the  stimulus  is  not  single  but  mani¬ 
fold  ;  an  internal  stimulus,  for  example,  must  co-oper¬ 
ate  with  an  external  stimulus  before  the  response  can 
take  place.  If  the  internal  stimulus  is  persistent 
(appearing  in  consciousness  as  a  craving)  while  the 
external  stimulus  is  occasional,  the  course  of  the  corre¬ 
sponding  instinct  may  appear  irregular,  may  be  latent 
or  interrupted.  The  hen  ready  to  brood  is  presumably 
subject  to  an  inner  source  of  restlessness  which  per¬ 
sists,  like  a  hunger,  until  in  presence  of  the  nest  and 
its  contents  the  long-deferred  behavior  sets  in  with 
well-known  determination  or  obstinacy  (as  one  chooses 
to  look  at  it).  It  is  not  difficult  to  invent  a  scheme  of 
nervous  connections  which  could  be  conceived  to  oper¬ 
ate  in  some  such  way  as  this  in  human  beings.  All 
such  schemes  are  indeed  too  simple  to  account  in  full 
for  even  the  simpler  cases  of  actual  behavior :  but  the 
biologist,  like  other  scientists,  lives  by  faith  to  this 
extent, — he  inclines  to  regard  his  problem  as  solved 
when  he  can  see  how  in  principle  it  might  be  solved. 
And  for  the  present  we  may  assume  that  he  is  justified 
in  his  faith,  if  not  by  it.^ 

To  each  instinct  there  will  necessarily  belong  a  set 
of  motor  organs  which  may  be  assembled,  in  structure, 

1  A  carefully  devised  set  of  graphic  schemes  has  been  developed  by 
Professor  Max  Meyer  in  The  Fundamental  Laws  of  Human  Behavior. 


40 


THE  NATURAL  MAN 


as  a  single  organ  group,  or  may  be  dispersed.  To  the 
swimming  or  flying  or  spinning  instincts  are  bound 
the  distinctive  apparatuses.  With  the  beaver’s  build¬ 
ing  propensity  goes  the  beaver’s  tail.  And  vice  versa, 
with  every  such  group  of  motor  organs"  will  be  found 
an  instinct  for  its  operation.  There  is  thus  a  very 
rough  correspondence  between  bodily  shape  and 
instinctive  equipment :  the  instincts  are  inherited  with 
the  body,  as  its  behavior-charter,  so  to  speak. 

But  to  the  biologist,  the  notion  of  instinct  contains 
much  more  than  the  picture  of  a  mechanism  and  the 
mode  of  its  operation.  The  mechanism  is  regarded  as 
a  unit  not  simply  because  its  activity  has  a  definite 
beginning  and  ending,  but  because  this  activity  reaches 
a  conclusion  which  we  called  significant.  More  accu¬ 
rately,  it  brings  about  a  situation  which  in  general 
favors  the  survival  of  the  organism  or  of  its  species. 
Instincts  are  common  to  all  members  of  a  species  or 
to  any  given  sex  of  the  species ;  and  usually  character¬ 
ize  its  way  of  life.  As  hereditary  paths  of  least  resist¬ 
ance,  they  serve  as  a  sort  of  initiation,  a  foreshortened 
education,  for  the  vital  activities  of  the  species. 

To  be  useful  in  this  way,  it  is  evident  that  they  must 
be  successful  'with  a  minimum  of  training,  or  with 
none.  Social  imitation  helps  the  first  efforts  at  flying, 
swimming,  song;  but  it  is  the  untaught  and  unteachable 
skill  that  marks  the  instinct.  Few,  if  any,  instinctive 
actions  can  be  said  to  be  perfect  at  the  first  attempt 
(unless  such  unique  actions  as  breaking  through  the 

2  Any  given  muscle,  it  must  be  understood,  may  appear  in  a  number 
of  such  groups.  The  distinctness  of  one  instinct  from  another  lies  in  the 
group,  not  in  the  motor  units. 


THE  NOTION  OF  INSTINCT 


41 


egg-shell,  and  even  then,  a  preliminary  rehearsal  or  a 
second  birth  might  well  produce  improvement).  But 
the  instinctive  action  is  effective  from  the  beginning, 
as  it  could  not  he  effective  had  it  to  wait  for  either 
experience  or  instruction. 

This  relation  of  the  instincts  to  the  wider  interests 
of  the  organism  implies  a  further  fact  about  their 
physiology.  Their  nervous  circuits  include  branches 
that  run  through  the  highest  nervous  center.  The 
instinct  is  under  cerebral  control;  and  after  its  first 
quasi-mechanical  operation,  is  subject  to  modification 
through  its  bearing  on  other  processes  reporting  at 
the  center.  It  is  the  destiny  of  most  instincts  to  be¬ 
come  habits  shaped  by  experience  of  the  owner ;  hence 
they  must  work  under  the  supervision  of  the  owner. 
They  are  not,  like  the  winking-reflex,  for  example, 
incidental  reactions  of  a  part  of  an  animal;  they  are 
reactions  of  the  whole  animal;  they  constitute  the 
whole  business  of  the  moment  of  their  op^eration. 

The  language  we  have  been  using  may  all  be  inter¬ 
preted  physiologically.  But  for  us,  the  significance 
of  an  instinct  comes  from  its  psychological,  not  from 
its  barely  physiological  aspect.  That  a  nervous  loop 
jiasses  upward  through  the  higher  centers  means  to 
us  that  an  instinct  is  an  element  of  consciousness  as 
well  as  of  sub-consciousness;  it  falls  within  what  we 
call  a  mind,  a  memory;  it  is  material  for  remaking. 

From  the  conscious  side,  the  ^stimulus’  appears  as 
an  object  of  perception.  And  the  circumstance  that 
this  object  tends  to  stimulate,  to  provoke  a  response, 
implies  that  the  perception  will  be  accompanied  by 


42  THE  NATUKAL  MAH 

desire  or  aversion  as  well  as  followed  by  action.  As 
the  nervous  channel  is  the  physical  link  between  a 
particular  stimulus  and  a  particular  response,  so  a 
desire  is  the  conscious  link  between  a  particular  per¬ 
ception  and  a  particular  action.  Without  this  link  of 
desire  the  other  two  mental  facts  would  not  be  parts 
of  one  mind.  With  the  desire  often  appears  feeling 
or  emotion,  especially  if  the  response  requires  a  large 
change  in  the  energy  or  direction  of  the  existing 
mental  current.  But  whether  the  stimulus,  the  object 
perceived,  arouses  emotion  or  not,  it  always  invites 
interest.  As  the  kitten  finds  fascination  in  a  moving 
string,  prior  to  any  experience  with  mice,  so  every 
object  that  plays  on  instinctive  tendencies  appears  to 
consciousness  as  invested  with  an  unexplained  claim 
upon  attention.  It  has  a  seemingly  intrinsic  value. 
It  has  a  ‘meaning^  for  us,  more  or  less  vague  or  pre¬ 
monitory  or  understood,  according  to  the  extent  of 
our  experience  with  that  particular  instinct  and  its 
result.  It  seems  probable  to  me  that  a  pond  of  water 
may  have  to  a  gosling  some  ‘meaning’  at  first  sight; 
but  any  such  instinct-object  comes  in  time  to  ‘mean’ 
definitely  the  whole  instinct-process  and  its  end.  The 
conscious  ‘stimulus’  is  the  perception  of  the  end  as 
the  meaning  of  the  beginning. 

Because  of  this  demand  upon  attention  and  interest, 
always  more  or  less  unexplained,  an  instinctive  im¬ 
pulse  frequently  appears  in  the  human  mind,  full  of 
what  we  regard  more  rational  concerns,  as  a  stranger 
in  the  house,  curiously  external  to  the  ‘self’  that  dwells 
there.  Thus  fear  or  anger  may  invade  a  mind  as  an 


THE  NOTION  OF  INSTINCT 


43 


intruder  with  which  the  self  deliberately  struggles,  in 
the  name  of  reason  or  of  principle.  In  working  out 
the  issue  with  fear  of  "  the  dark,  a  child  commonly 
reaches  a  stage  in  which  this  fear  is  almost  an  objec¬ 
tive  phenomenon  within  himself,  and  may  be  personi¬ 
fied  as  a  dragon  or  other  foul  spirit  to  be  overcome. 
The  instinct  with  its  almost  mechanical  sweep  is  alien 
to  my  self. 

Yet  in  this  externality  of  the  instinct — naturally 
clearest  in  the  aversions,  the  negative  instincts — there 
is  a  paradox.  It  is  in  instinctive  action  that  one  is 
most  himself.  During  the  moment  in  which  the  object 
of  perception,  the  stimulus,  may  be  purely  interest¬ 
ing,^  the  self  stands  outside  the  instinct;  but  the  fas¬ 
cination  which  that  object  exercises,  whether  auspi¬ 
cious  or  baleful,  conveys  an  invitation  to  identify  that 
self  with  an  attractive  process  of  action.  To  yield  to 
the  invitation  is  perceived  as  a  route  of  high  satis¬ 
faction,  even  though  (as  in  anger)  there  is  involved 
an  intense  effort  and  possible  pain.  The  instinct  is  a 
channel  down  which  the  current  of  life  rushes  with 
exceptional  impetus;  once  committed  to  it,  we  reach 
our  highest  pitch  of  personal  self-consciousness,  our 
greatest  sense  of  power  and  command.  The  self  be¬ 
comes  identified  with  its  greatest  passions.  Hence  a 
certain  dread  frequently  felt  at  the  brink  of  instinctive 
behavior,  even  when  it  appears  as  a  path  of  satisfac¬ 
tion. 

To  resume  our  view  of  this  term,  instinct,  so  com¬ 
monly  invoked  as  a  unit  of  human  and  animal  nature. 
As  a  physiological  mechanism,  we  have  noted  the 


44 


THE  NATUKAL  MAN 


orderly  and  progressive  sequence  of  reflexes  that  com¬ 
pose  it,  the  contribution  of  this  series,  as  a  whole,  to 
the  vital  interests  of  the  organism  or  species,  the  cen¬ 
tral  connection  which  marks  its  response  as  total,  and 
its  destiny  to  be -modified  by  experience  and  to  become 
an  individualized  habit.  As  a  fact  of  consciousness, 
we  have  described  instinct  as  accentuating  the  interest 
of  certain  objects  of  perception,  endowing  them  with 
a  meaning  to  be  worked  out  in  a  course  of  conduct 
whose  prompting  is  the  essential  part  of  the  instinct, 
giving  zest,  momentum,  and  assurance  to  that  course 
of  conduct, — a  zest  not  unmixed  with  the  thrill  of 
dread  as  something  fateful  for  the  history  of  the 
self, — and  leading  to  a  situation  of  repose  whose  value 
is  the  conscious  justification  for  the  whole  process. 

If  the  entire  human  being  is  originally  a  bundle  of 
such  instincts,  this  ^self’  which  at  any  moment  seems 
to  be  contrasted  with  a  given  instinct  may  be  regarded 
as  the  representative  at  that  moment  of  all  the  other 
instincts.  I  doubt  whether  this  will  prove  to  be  a 
wholly  satisfactory  account  of  the  ^self,’  or  of  original 
human  nature,  but  it  may  serve  us  for  the  present  as  a 
working  hypothesis. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


THE  RANGE  OF  INSTINCT 

IN  forming  our  notion  of  instinct,  we  find  at  the 
same  time  the  criteria  by  which  an  instinct  is  to 
be  recognized.  To  external  observation,  the  presence 
of  an  instinct  would  be  indicated  by  the  trend  of  the 
entire  species  into  a  distinctive  mode  of  livelihood,  by 
an  untaught  skill  in  pursuing  these  characteristic  ways, 

I 

and  by  the  peculiar  organs  or  organic  contours  that 
correspond  to  them.  An  observer  would  look  also  for 
outward  signs  of  the  inner  states  which  accompany 
instinct,  for  the  expressions  of  spontaneous  interest  in 
certain  objects,  of  desire  or  aversion,  of  characteristic 
emotions,  and  finally,  of  a  degree  of  urgency  and 
insistence  in  the  behavior.  For  the  impeding  of 
instinctive  behavior  in  animals  almost  infallibly  excites 
first  vehemence  and  then  anger.  To  long  continued 
observation  other  marks  may  furnish  clues.  Thus, 
since  instinctive  action  is  an  attractive  experience,  it 
is  likely  to  be  not  alone  recurrent,  hut  also  the  basis 
of  play,  and  in  subtler  expression,  of  the  more  enduring 
interests,  bents,  powers,  passions  of  the  creature. 

But  these  criteria  are  not  all  equally  serviceable  or 
conclusive.  For  the  most  part,  the  identification  of  an 
instinct  tends  to  rest  upon  the  simple  question  whether 
there  is  an  untaught  skill,  the  other  marks  being 


46 


THE  NATUKAL  MAN 


merely  corroborative.  With  these  criteria  at  hand, 
what  range  of  instinct  can  we  attribute  to  original 
human  nature? 

At  first  sight,  the  human  equipment  seems  compara¬ 
tively  slender.  We  have  already  referred  to  the  rela¬ 
tive  absence  of  fixed  traits  in  the  human  infant.  Berg¬ 
son  has  recently  reaffirmed  the  once  current  belief  that 
man,  with  the  vertebrates  generally,  has  largely  sur¬ 
rendered  instinct  in  the  interest  of  intellect.  This 

running  to  intellect,’^  i.e.,  an  innate  propensity  to 
master  vital  problems  by  dissecting  and  reconstruct¬ 
ing,  such  as  men  take  to  with  more  or  less  of  untaught 
skill,  might  with  some  justice  be  called  the  essential 
instinct  of  man,  a  substitute  for  all  other  instincts. 
In  him,  the  vital  impetus  makes  for  curiosity,  and  for 
the  invention  of  hypotheses,  and  of  tools. 

It  is  true  that  many  observers,  from  Darwin  on¬ 
ward  to  Chadbourne  and  William  James,  have  been 
impressed  by  the  number  and  variety  of  instinct- 
rudiments  in  man.  But  we  are  looking  for  funda¬ 
mental  factors  in  the  building  of  a  mind,  not  for  relics 
and  fragments  of  an  admitted  animal  ancestry.  We 
wish  to  know  whether  there  are  instincts  which,  as 
McDougall  claims,  provide  the  nucleus  of  all  human 
values :  we  are  less  concerned  whether  there  are 
vestiges  that  explain  the  peculiar  ways  in  which  we 
laugh  or  cry. 

In  animals  other  than  man,  instinct  attracts  atten¬ 
tion  partly  because  of  the  conjunction  of  apparently 
superhuman  cunning  with  subhuman  powers  of 
thought;  in  part  because  of  the  remarkable  bodily 


THE  KANGE  OF  INSTINCT 


47 


structures  which  accompany  them.  Man  lacks  these 
striking  organic  instruments  almost  entirely.  He  has 
no  horns,  wings,  humps,  claws,  quills,  tusks,  shell,  or 
sting.  His  body  offers  no  visible  foothold  for  notable 
functions  of  offence,  defence,  or  craftsmanship.  He 
is  a  relatively  smooth  and  unmarked  animal.  Inter¬ 
nally,  also,  his  organs  are  undistinguished.  Except 
that  he  is  obviously  neither  fish  nor  fowl,  his  structure 
does  not  mark  him  for  this  or  that  habitat  or  diet,  nor 
for  special  mastery  over  any  part  of  nature.  Physi¬ 
cally,  he  is  as  nearly  as  possible,  animal-in-general. 

From  what  we  can  infer  of  primitive  psychology, 
something  analogous  must  be  said  of  the  inner  man. 
He  shows  no  great  native  skills  nor  passions.  He  is 
not  strikingly  social  nor  solitary,  warlike  nor  submis¬ 
sive,  benevolent  nor  selfish.  Hobbes  and  Grotius  were 
both  in  error,  the  one  in  representing  us  as  dominantly 
pugnacious,  the  other  as  dominantly  amicable.  Mon¬ 
tesquieu  showed  greater  insight.  The  natural  human 
being,  he  thought,  shows  no  conspicuous  powers 
whether  of  loyalty,  mastery,  or  achievement,  inter¬ 
ested  or  disinterested.  *  Sufficient  evidence  of  this  may 
be  the  wide  disagreements  of  those  who  have  ventured 
to  draw  up  lists  of  the  principal  instincts.  Apart  from 
fear,  hunger,  pugnacity,  and  love,  few  names  com¬ 
monly  recur  in  such  lists ;  and  none  of  these  can  show 
a  wholly  undisputed  title.  Thus,  psychically  also,  we 
seem  to  be  dealing  with  a  generalized  creature,  not 
with  one  specified  in  character  by  many  instinctive 
traits. 

But  there  are  reasons  why  in  the  case  of  the  human 


48 


THE  NATUEAL  MAN 


being,  the  coarser  criteria  of  instinct  may  not  at  once 
reveal  what  is  there.  Three  such  reasons  occur  to 
me : 

1.  The  balance  of  instincts.  If  any  organ  or  func¬ 
tion  is  inconspicuous,  it  is  always  possible  that  it  does 
not  exist,  and'  this  is  no  doubt  the  most  obvious  sup¬ 
position.  But  it  is  also  possible  that  supplementary 
organs  or  functions  have  grown  up  beside  it,  balancing 
its  action,  and  tending  to  conceal  it.  So  far  as  human 
instincts  are  concerned,  the  latter  supposition  seems 
the  true  one.  Anatomically,  it  is  the  balance  of  powers 
rather  than  the  lack  of  them  that  distinguishes  the 
human  type.  The  erect  posture,  for  instance,  implies 
not  the  lack  of  a  ventral  musculature,  but  rather  the 
growth  of  an  equivalent  dorsal  musculature.  Like¬ 
wise  with  the  instincts.  If  no  one  impulse  is  dominant 
in  human  behavior,  it  is  not  because  the  impulses  are 
lacking,  but  because  in  any  situation  two  or  more  im¬ 
pulses  are  likely  to  be  concerned.  Man  is  not  fated  to 
predation,  nor  yet  to  a  life  of  fear  and  flight.  It  is  not 
prescribed  by  nature  that  he  should  live  in  immense 
herds,  nor  in  mutually  repellent  families,  nor  alone. 
Yet  impulses  in  all  these  directions  are  present  in  him, 
and  he  is  the  field  of  their  conflict  and  adjustment. 

2.  Variety  of  pattern.  For  the  sake  of  simplicity 
we  commonly  picture  the  physiological  pattern  of  an 
instinct  as  a  triple  arrangement  of  sense-stimulus, 
central  adjustment,  and  muscular  response, — for  each 
instinct  a  complete  individual  set  of  these  three  parts. 
And  where  an  instinct  conforms  to  this  simple  design, 
following  a  path  of  its  own  and  using  a  specialized 


I 


4 


THE  KANGE  OF  INSTINCT  49 

group  of  muscles  as  in  eating,  vocalization,  locomotion, 
it  will  hardly  escape  detection.  But  few  of  our  in¬ 
stincts  have  such  clear-cut  rights-of-way:  for  some  of 
them  few  muscles  or  none  are  set  apart.  Thus,  fear- 
and-flight  and  anger-and-comhat  are  highly  contrast¬ 
ing  impulses :  but  they  arise  from  similar  stimuli,  and 
the  muscles  as  well  as  the  visceral  changes  involved 
in  one  largely  coincide  with  those  involved  in  the 
other.  To  instincts  of  this  pattern,  structure  will  fur¬ 
nish  no  definite  clue. 

And  there  is,  unless  I  am  much  mistaken,  a  still 
more  obscure  pattern, — one  in  which  the  muscular 
changes  involved  are  variable,  and  in  some  cases  com¬ 
paratively  unimportant,  because  the  function  of  the 
instinct  is  to  effect  adjustments  within  the  nervous 
system.  If  there  is  an  instinctive  basis  for  aesthetic 
values,  for  example,  it  is  probably  of  this  pattern; 
surely  there  is  no  typical  series  of  muscular  events 
which  can  be  said  to  be  characteristic  of  our  response 
to  beauty!  An  investigator  whose  eye  is  fixed  upon 
the  pattern  of  sensible  stimulus  and  determinate  mus¬ 
cular  response  will  be  inclined  to  deny  the  existence 
of  such  instincts ;  but  we  cannot  so  dogmatically  close 
the  question. 

3.  Coalescence  of  instincts.  There  is  a  tendency 
among  instincts  of  all  but  the  simplest  patterns,  not 
alone  to  share  in  the  tracts  of  physical  expression  (as 
above),  but  also  to  participate  in  the  satisfactions  one 
of  another,  vicariously.  Are  we  prepared  to  say,  for 
instance,  that  a  successful  wooing  provides  satisfac¬ 
tion  for  the  mating  instinct,  but  none  for  the  instinct 


50 


THE  NATURAE  MAN 


of  acquisition  (if  there  is  such)  or  of  self-assertion 
(if  there  is  such),  or,  for  that  matter,  of  self-abase¬ 
ment?  If  not,  we  must  acknowledge  that  no  enumera¬ 
tion  of  instincts  in  which  one  is  supposed  to  be  wholly 
different  from  the  other  in  clean-cut  division,  is  likely 
to  do  justice  to  the  actual  situation. 

When  these  sources  of  possible  error  are  borne  in 
mind,  it  will  appear,  I  believe,  that  the  human  equip¬ 
ment  of  instinct  is  by  no  means  a  meager  one.  We 
shall  now  endeavor  to  make  a  rough  survey  of  it. 


I 


CHAPTER  IX 

SURVEY  OF  THE  HUMAN  EQUIPMENT 

First,  there  are  numerous  clear-cut  instincts  of 
simple  pattern  which  we  may  call  ^  units  of  be¬ 
havior,  ’  because  they  are  used  in  various  combinations. 
In  the  human  economy  not  alone  are  there  few  muscles 
that  are  used  for  only  one  achievement :  there  are  few 
of  the  simpler  instincts  which  appear  in  only  one  vital 
function.  The  operations  of  reaching,  grasping,  pull¬ 
ing,  shaking,  are  such  units.  They  are  sometimes 
referred  to  jointly  as  an  instinct  of  prehension.  But 
evidently  there  are  few  of  the  major  instincts  into 
whose  course  they  do  not  enter,  as  in  the  beginnings  of 
locomotion,  in  climbing,  food-getting,  curiosity,  love, 
pugnacity.  It  is  as  if  in  man  the  elaborate  instincts  of 
his  animal  forbears  had  been  broken  into  fragments, 
or  analyzed  after  the  manner  of  human  intelligence 
itself,  in  order  that  duplication  might  be  avoided,  and 
new  possibilities  of  combining  realized.  Instead  of  a 
one-piece  instinct  of  locomotion,  we  have  many  partial 
instincts  which  further  the  co-operation  of  various 
groups  of  muscles  in  the  numerous  postures  of  which 
the  body  is  capable,  in  crawling,  standing,  walking, 
running,  climbing.  Doubtless  many  of  these  innate 
connections  have  yet  to  be  isolated :  no  one  knows  what 
instinctive  hints  and  guidance  may  come  to  the  aid 


52 


THE  NATUEAL  MAN 


of  the  first  leap  or  of  the  first  dodge  or  fall.  Food¬ 
getting  when  it  reaches  the  month  becomes  almost  a 
specific  instinct,  though  sucking,  biting,  chewing  have 
a  degree  of  separability,  and  so  of  other  employment. 
The  tendency  of  all  careful  study  of  instincts,  guided 
by  the  formula  of  sense-stimulus  and  specific  response, 
is  to  fragmentize  in  this  manner  the  older  instinct 
categories.  Curiosity’^  disappears  in  a  group  of 
instinctive  movements  of  attention  and  of  manipula¬ 
tion  such  as  we  mentioned  above.  The  result  is  an 
elaborate  gamut  of  units  of  behavior.^ 

In  the  view  of  some  writers,  these  units  of  behavior 
are  strictly  speaking  the  only  true  instincts ;  the  wider 
categories,  curiosity,  hunger,  etc.,  should  be  recognized 
as  convenient  and  misleading  class-names,  represent¬ 
ing  no  real  unitary  instinct.^  It  is  not  evident,  how¬ 
ever,  why  a  combination  of  such  units  to  a  single  ser¬ 
viceable  end  might  not  be  prearranged  by  nature  quite 
as  truly  as  the  units  themselves.  It  is  a  question 
of  fact  whether  such  more  inclusive  instincts  exist. 
Flight,  for  example,  under  the  impulse  of  fear,  seems 
a  thoroughly  instinctive  performance,  making  use 
with  untaught  skill  of  many  units  of  behavior.  It  is 
noteworthy  also  that  the  order  and  variety  of  these 
units  is  not  fixed :  the  end-situation  to  be  brought  about 
by  flight  is  describable  only  in  general  terms,  as  well 

1  See  the  lists  of  James  and  Thorndike  noticed  on  pages  58-60. 

2  A  similar  problem  arises  in  the  outlining  of  species.  ‘  ‘  In  a  handful 
of  small  shells  the  ‘splitters’  may  recognize  20  species,  while  the 
‘stampers’  see  only  3.  Thus  Haeckel  says  of  calcareous  sponges  that, 
as  the  naturalist  likes  to  look  at  the  problem,  there  are  3  species,  or  21, 
or  289,  or  591.”  Thomson,  Outlines  of  Zoology,  p.  14.  But  instinct 
is  less  likely  to  be  regarded  a  subjective  entity  than  species. 


SURVEY  OF  THE  HUMAN  EQUIPMENT  53 

as  the  means  of  reaching  it.  The  end  is  to  get  away; 
and  it  is  a  secondary  matter  what  place  I  reach,  or 
whether  I  run  away,  creep  away,  or  climb  away.  I 
should  recognize  flight  as  a  genuine  instinct,  identified 
by  its  vital  meaning  or  end  and  by  the  general  char¬ 
acter  of  the  process.  And  since  both  the  end  and  the 
process  are  to  be  described  in  general  rather  than 
specific  terms,  this  instinct  might  be  called  a  general 
instinct.  Most  of  the  traditional  instincts  are  general 
in  this  sense.  Fear,  which  names  an  emotion  rather 
than  an  instinct,  expresses  itself  not  alone  in  flight 
but  in  contraction,  concealment,  rigidity,  etc.  Yet  it 
also  has  a  definable  end;  and  its  unity  seems  further 
guaranteed  by  its  genetic  position  at  the  head  of  a 
group  of  defensive  reactions.  I  should  recognize  fear 
as  the  (rather  inaccurate)  name  of  an  instinct  of  still 
higher  generality. 

It  is  among  these  general  instincts  that  the  tendency 
of  the  human  equipment  toward  balance  is  most  readily 
recognized.  Some  of  the  units  of  behavior  are  paired, 
as  pulling  and  pushing,  taking  into  the  mouth  and 
spitting  out,  laughing  and  weeping;  many  again  have 
no  specific  counterparts.  But  the  general  instincts  fall 
naturally  into  pairs,  as  follows:  instinct  to  general 
physical  activity  and  instinct  to  repose  (including  the 
various  modes  of  rest  and  sleep  as  units  of  behavior) ; 
curiosity  and  aversion  to  novelty ;  sociability  and  anti¬ 
sociability.  This  last  named  pair  is  itself  highly  gen¬ 
eral,  including  within  itself  such  instincts,  also  general, 
as  those  of  dominance  and  submission,  sex-love  and 
sex-aversion,  and  parental  love, — which  seems  to  have 


54  •  THE  NATUKAL  MAN 

no  more  express  counterpart  than  a  repugnance  to 
children,  which  in  most  persons  is  a  submerged  trait. 

It  is  possible  that  all  of  these  instincts  are  derived, 
as  Gr.  H.  Schneider  thinks,  from  a  pair  of  primitive 
reactions,  expansive  and  contractive  in  nature.  I 
should,  in  fact,  be  inclined  to  group  all  the  assertive 
and  outgoing  instincts  under  one  highly  general 
instinct  of  activity,  or  expansion,  and  all  the  negative 
instincts  under  a  highly  general  instinct  of  aversion  or 
fear.  Pugnacity  would  be  a  general  instinct,  compara¬ 
tively  late  in  development,  uniting  in  itself  the  quali¬ 
ties  of  aversion  and  expansion.  The  most  primitive 
reaction  to  opposition  is  contraction,  withdrawal,  fear : 
nature’s  second  thought  is  that  a  reserve  of  energy 
may  be  devoted  to  remove  the  obstacle — and  here  pug¬ 
nacity,  with  its  own  characteristic  units  of  behavior, 
enters  the  scene. 

In  speaking  of  pugnacity,  however,  we  touch  upon 
an  extremely  interesting  development  in  the  system 
of  instincts.  In  a  wider  sense  of  the  word  pugnacity, 
it  may  be  said  that  every  instinct  is  pugnacious ;  that 
is,  it  is  characteristic  of  instinctive  action  of  all  sorts, 
even  of  fear,  to  meet  opposition  with  irritation  and  an 
increased  appropriation  of  energy.  Mr.  McDougall 
has  made  this  fact  the  defining  character  of  anger  and 
the  instinct  of  pugnacity.  That  quality  of  spiritedness 
which  makes  an  obstacle  a  spur  rather  than  a  discour¬ 
agement  is  unquestionably  a  more  general  form  of  the 
fighting  instinct.  But  the  point  of  particular  interest 
in  this  wider  form  of  pugnacity  is  that  it  is  an  instinc¬ 
tive  control  of  instinct ^  an  instinct  of  the  second  order. 


I 


SUKVEY  OF  THE  HUMAN  EQUIPMENT  55 

There  are  other  aspects  of  the  instinctive  regulation 
of  the  course  of  instincts.  Play  is  a  lightening  of  the 
instinct-pressure,  so  to  speak,  under  control  of  socia¬ 
bility;  as  pugnacity  is  an  enhancement  of  pressure, 
under  control  of  anti-sociability.^  Every  instinct  may 
be  expressed  playfully  as  well  as  pugnaciously;  and 
the  preponderance  of  one  or  the  other  of  these  tenden¬ 
cies  of  the  second  order  marks  the  difference  in  tem¬ 
perament  between  the  gay  and  the  serious-minded.  It 
may  also  be  said  that  every  instinct  is  curious,  for 
every  instinct,  in  man  at  any  rate,  tends  to  lend  inter¬ 
est  to  objects  in  any  way  bearing  upon  its  own  opera¬ 
tion;  or,  conversely,  curiosity  may  be  regarded  as  a 
function  of  control  or  guidance  applicable  generally  to 
instincts  of  the  first  order.  Curiosity  as  an  appendage 
of  food-getting,  construction,  sociability,  etc.,  doubt¬ 
less  precedes  in  order  of  development  the  uuriosity 
which  appears  as  an  independent  hunger  of  the  mind. 

This  latter  kind  of  curiosity  is  typical  of  that  ex¬ 
tremely  important  group  of  general  instincts  which  in 
our  last  chapter  we  spoke  of  as  central.  These  intro¬ 
duce  a  question  so  critical  for  our  theory  of  instinct 
that  we  treat  of  it  in  a  separate  chapter.  It  will  be  in 
place  here  to  throw  into  rough  tabular  form  the  survey 
so  far  as  completed,  while  recognizing  the  impossibility 
of  representing  in  two  dimensions — or  any  other  num- 

3  Play  and  pugnacity,  in  this  regulative  capacity,  furnish  another 
instance  of  balance,  and  we  frequently  find  them  alternating.  But 
their  relation  is  not  simply  that  of  contrast  and  balance.  As  instincts 
of  the  second  order,  the  domain  of  each  includes  the  other,  i.e.,  we 
often  play  at  pugnacity,  and  are  sometimes  pugnacious  in  the  pursuit 
of  play. 


SURVEY  OF  THE  HUMAN  INSTINCTS 


POSITIVE  (Expansive) 


NEGATIVE  (Contractive) 


Aggressive 


Defensive 


Instinct  to  Physical  Activity  (?) 

Stretching 
Ritbbing  Eyes,  etc. 


Prehension 

Grasping 
Reaching,  PuUing 
Shaking,  etc. 

Locomotion  . 

Standing,  Crawling 
Walking,  Running  rj 
Climbing,  etc. 

Food -Getting 

Sucking,  Swallowing 
Carrying^  Mouth 
Biting,  eh 

Huntii^-^ 

Koviu!&^ 


Acquisition  (?)V 
Consh^tion  (?) 

s^^^r-making  (vestigial) 

Curiosity  (primitive) 

Movements  qf  Attendmg^ 
Manipulating,  etc. 


0 


Sociability 


V 'xalization 
Imitative  Acts 
Gregarious  Behavior 
Etc. 


Domination  — 

Display,  etc. 

Sex- Love 

Courting,  Copulation 
Home-making  (?) 

Parental  Love 

Nursing,  etc. 

Attachment  to  Parent 


4 


Pushing  Away 


I  nstinct  to  I nacti vity  ( ? ) 
Preparation  for  Repose. 
Sleep,  Death 

Fear  (primitive) 

4 


A 


4 


x>od  Aversion 


S^^^  Out 


Averting  Head 


Protective  (extension  of  parental  ?) 

I  Aversion  to  Blood 


I 


( 

I 

version  to  Novelty 
I 
I 
I 
I 

Anti-Sociability 


Contrast  Acts 


Pugnacity  (primitive)  J 


Shyness 

Secretiveness 

-Submission 

Bending,  etc. 


Sex-Aversion 

Ruction  cf  Contact  \  Shame 

I 
I 

Aversion  to  Children  (?) 

I 

I 

.1 


ROTE,  Jnsttncis  qf  second  order  xcntten  across  page.  Units  qf  behavior  in  Italics, 
Indentation  irtdicates  degree  qf  generality,  not  genetic  priority. 


SUKVEY  OF  THE  HUMAN  EQUIPMENT  57 

ber — the  relations  between  psycho-physical  entities  of 
this  kind. 

Note.  For  comparison  I  append  several  lists  of  instincts: 

Chadbourne,  writing  in  1872,  was  one  of  the  earliest  in  this 
country  to  give  attention  to  instinct  in  man.  William  James 
was  influenced  to  some  extent  by  his  work.  His  attitude  is 
modern  in  one  respect  at  least:  instead  of  arguing  from  the 
inadequacy  of  instinct  to  the  necessity  of  reason  in  man,  he 
argues  from  the  incompetence  of  reason  to  the  necessity  of 
instinct.  Because  reason,  in  the  following  respects,  is  unable 
to  adapt  man  to  his  world,  a  group  of  instincts  is  needed  at 
each  point : 

1.  For  the  life  of  the  individual  and  the  species,  a  set  of 

instincts  common  to  man  and  animals,  and  suffi¬ 
ciently  designated  as  ‘appetites.’ 

2.  For  progress  of  the  individual  and  the  race : 

The  desire  for  society; 

The  desire  for  knowledge,  property,  power,  esteem; 

The  impulse  to  confide  in  persons,  or  faith; 

The  disposition  to  do  for  posterity. 

3.  For  benevolence  (i.e.,  for  maintaining  the  social  and 

moral  life)  : 

The  sense  of  obligation.  “It  is  plain  that  we  feel 
under  obligation  to  do  certain  acts  for  the  doing  of 
which  we  can  give  no  reason  except  that  we  feel 
the  obligation.”  Shown  in  four  ways: 

1.  Impelling  to  choose  the  end  for  which  we  are 

made ; 

2.  Impelling  to  every  act  judged  as  means  to  that 

end ; 

3.  Impelling  to  certain  acts  whose  relation  to  that 

.  end  is  not  seen ; 

4.  Impelling  the  “comprehending  power”  to  do 

its  best  to  furnish  the  most  favorable  eon-" 

ditions  for  realizing  our  obligation. 


58 


THE  NATUKAL  MAN 


4.  For  religion  (i.e.,  for  adaptation  to  supernatural 
environment)  : 

The  impulse  to  prayer,  etc. 

William  James,  writing  in  1890,  gives  a  list  based  largely 
on  Preyer  and  Schneider,  remarking  of  it  that  ‘‘no  other 
mammal,  not  even  the  monkey,  shows  so  large  an  array.” 
Approximately  the  first  twenty  correspond  with  our  ‘units 
of  behavior.’ 


Sucking. 

Biting. 

Chewing  and  grinding  teeth. 
Licking. 

Grimacing. 

Spitting  out. 

Clasping. 

Reaching  toward. 

Pointing  (and  sounding). 
Carrying  to  mouth. 

Crying. 

Smiling. 

Protruding  lips. 

Turning  head  aside. 

Holding  head  erect. 

Sitting  up. 

Standing. 

Locomotion. 

Climbing. 


Vocalization. 

Imitation. 

Emulation  or  rivalry. 
Pugnacity,  anger,  resentment. 
Sympathy. 

The  hunting  instinct. 

Fear. 

Acquisition. 

Constructiveness. 

Play. 

Curiosity. 

Sociability  and  shyness. 
Secretiveness. 

Cleanliness. 

Modesty,  shame. 

Love. 

Jealousy. 

Parental  love. 


In  making  his  list,  J ames  was  guided  by  a  method  of  ‘  ‘  physi¬ 
ological  analysis,”  and  he  regarded  his  results,  though  con¬ 
fessedly  incomplete,  as  having  clear  advantages  over  such  a 
“muddled  list”  as  that  of  Santlus  (Leipzig,  1864),  who  had 
classified  human  instincts  under  three  heads, — instincts  of 
being,  of  function,  and  of  life. 

Wm.  McDougall,  whose  interest  is  in  the  social  significance 


SURVEY  OF  THE  HUMAN  EQUIPMENT 


59 


of  instinct,  identifies  seven  fundamental  instincts  by  means 
of  their  corresponding  emotions,  namely: 


Fear. 

Disgust. 

Wonder. 

Anger. 

Subjection,  negative  self-feeling. 
Elation,  positive  self-feeling. 
Tender  emotion. 


In  addition  to  these,  McDougall  recognizes  suggestibility, 
imitation,  and  sympathy,  as  innate  tendencies  of  a  different 
pattern. 

The  most  discriminating  inventory  is  that  of  Professor  E.  L. 
Thorndike,  in  The  Original  Nature  of  Man,  1913.  Pro¬ 
fessor  Thorndike  is  as  much  of  a  “  splitter  ’  ’  as  Mr.  McDougall 
is  a  “slumper.’’  This  is  the  inevitable  consequence  of  his 
attempt  to  apply  consistently  the  scheme  of  stimulus- 
response.  It  would  be  impracticable  to  reproduce  here  the 
net  result  of  his  painstaking  studies  in  the  form  of  a  list,  and 
also  somewhat  unfair,  as  he  regards  the  list  as  decidedly 
provisional. 

But  a  specimen  of  his  reducing  process  may  be  given.  To 
recognize  groups  of  instincts  resulting  in  food-getting,  habi¬ 
tation,  fear,  fighting,  anger,  is  a  matter  of  convenience,  not 
of  strictly  scientific  relationship.  When  named  by  situation 
and  response,  the  following  innate  connections,  among  others, 
may  be  regarded  as  probable : 


Situation 


Response 


Eating 

Sweet  taste. 
Bitter  taste. 


Sucking  movements. 
Separating  posterior  por- 


Very  sour,  salt,  acrid,  bit- 


tions  of  tongue  and  palate. 
Spitting  and  letting  drool 


ter,  oily  objects. 

Food  when  satiated. 


out  of  the  mouth. 

Turning  head  to  one  side. 


60 


THE  NATUKAL  MAN 


Beaching. 

Not  being  closely  cuddled 
(in  young  infants). 

An  object  attended  to  and 
approximately  within  reach¬ 
ing  distance. 

An  attractive  object  seen. 


Acquisition  and  possession. 

Any  not  too  large  object 
which  attracts  attention  and 
does  not  possess  repelling  or 
frightening  features. 

Possession  of  object 
grasped. 

A  person  or  animal  grab¬ 
bing  or  making  off  with  an 
object  which  one  holds  or  has 
near  him  as  a  result  of  recent 
action  of  the  responses  of 
acquisition. 

■*  The  Original  Nature  of  Man, 


Reaching  and  clutching. 

Reaching,  maintaining  ex¬ 
tension  until  object  is 
grasped. 

Reaching  and  pointing, 
often  with  ^a  peculiar  sound 
expressive  of  desire.’ 

Approach,  or  if  within 
reaching  distance,  reaching, 
touching,  and  grasping. 

Putting  in  mouth,  or  gen¬ 
eral  manipulation,  or  both. 

The  neural  action  parallel¬ 
ing  the  primitive  emotion  of 
anger,  a  tight  clutch  on  the 
object,  and  pushing,  striking, 
and  screaming  at  the  in- 
truder.'^ 

pp.  50-52. 


CHAPTER  X 


THE  CENTRAL  INSTINCTS:  NECESSARY 

INTERESTS 


E  have  had  several  occasions  to  refer  to  the 


▼  ▼  place  of  curiosity  in  the  group  of  human 
instincts.  However  large  the  difference  among  men 
in  the  degree  of  their  inquisitiveness,  this  trait  is  evi¬ 
dently  in  some  degree  a  native  character  of  the  species, 
in  both  sexes.  It  shows  itself  in  certain  units  of  be¬ 
havior  of  the  simplest  pattern,  such  as  grasping,  tast¬ 
ing,  pulling  to  pieces.  It  hears  an  evident  proportion 
to  other  instincts :  wherever  animals  are  scantily 
armed  and  slightly  pugnacious,  there  is  generally  a 
compensating  development  of  fear  or  curiosity,  or  of 
both  as  in  the  timorous  and  yet  inquisitive  herbivora. 
These  tendencies,  whether  in  animals  or  in  men,  to 
spy  out,  examine,  test,  dissect,  appear  to  be  untaught, 
effective,  and  frequently  absorbing.  Sometimes  they 
reach  morbid  intensity  and  become  a  ‘^questioning 
mania,”  or  Grub  els  ucht.^^  Thus  there  are  substan¬ 
tial  reasons  for  including  curiosity  among  the  instincts. 

If  it  still  seems  anomalous  to  find  the  activity  of 
intellect,  customarily  contrasted  with  instinct,  brought 
within  that  category,  we  may  remember  that  while  the 
intellect  finds  reasons  (which  are  certainly  something 
else  than  instinct),  it  does  not  begin  by  asking  the 


62 


THE  NATUKAL  MAN 


reason  for  finding  reasons.  The  motive  or  value  of  its 
own  activity  is,  during  that  activity,  unreasoned  and 
untaught.  The  exercise  of  thought,  as  has  often  been 
remarked,  is  a  matter  of  our  impulsive  nature ;  and  it 
is  the  underlying  craving  for  action,  not  the  particu¬ 
lar  type  of  activity,  that  betokens  the  instinct. 

Yet  if  we  ask  what  we  should  regard  as  the  ‘stimu¬ 
lus’  in  the  case  of  curiosity,  we  find  it  impossible  to 
bring  it  under  the  usual  reflex  scheme.  “There  is  no 
one  class  of  objects,”  McDougall  points  out,  “to 
which  it  is  especially  directed,  or  in  presence  of  which 
it  is  invariably  displayed.”^  Curiosity  is  commonly 
excited  by  what  is  novel ;  and  what  is  novel  is  relative 
to  the  previous  experience  of  the  individual  in  ques¬ 
tion.  The  idea  of  a  ‘stimulus’  as  a  group  of  sensa¬ 
tions  that  will  invariably  excite  the  given  behavior  is 
thus  excluded  in  advance, — the  conditions  for  excit¬ 
ing  curiosity  negate  the  very  definition  of  a  stimulus. 
Curiosity  is  also  frequently  aroused  by  signs  of  con¬ 
cealment  or  stealth  in  others ;  but  try  to  express  con- 
-tjcealment  or  stealth  in  terms  of  a  constant  group  of 
sense-impressions,  and  one  forcibly  realizes  that  these 
are  objects,  not  of  vision,  but  of  interpretation  in 
terms  of  social  consciousness. 

And  if  we  ask  what  we  should  regard  as  the  ‘re¬ 
sponse,’  we  find  a  similar  difficulty.  Curiosity  has  its 
manifestations  in  physical  behavior  like  any  other 
instinct;  but  the  behavior  is  now  of  one  kind  and  now 
of  another, — listening,  peeking,  testing  with  hands 
and  mouth,  pulling  apart,  smelling,  shaking,  tiptoeing 

1  Body  and  Mind,  p.  266. 


NECESSAKY  INTEKESTS 


63 


and  creeping  np  upon,  or  later,  reading,  asking  ques¬ 
tions,  ^  stopping  to  think,  ’ — there  is  no  one-to-one 
correspondence  between  the  impulse  of  curiosity  and 
any  type  of  physical  action. 

This  does  not  mean  either  that  we  are  dealing  with 
a  multitude  of  fragmentary  instincts,  or  yet,  as  Mc- 
Dougall  infers^  that  we  are  dealing  with  a  purely 
psychical  process  which  has  no  complete  physiological 
expression.  What  it  does  mean,  I  suggest,  is  that  we 
must  recognize  a  kind  of  process  in  which  the  ‘stimu¬ 
lus^  as  well  as  the  ‘response’  are  primarily  central. 
It  is  the  existing  state  of  consciousness  which  deter¬ 
mines  whether,  and  in  what  quarter,  curiosity  shall 
be  aroused,  and  what  constitutes  its  satisfaction.  In 
physiological  terms,  curiosity  is  a  function  of  the  con¬ 
dition  of  the  centers. 

It  seems  probable  that  there  is  a  group  of  such  ten¬ 
dencies,  quite  as  native  as  any  modes  of  muscular 
behavior.  If  certain  central  conditions  are  natively 
unsatisfactory  and  certain  others  natively  satisfactory 
(which  can  hardly  be  doubted),  it  is  a  question  of 
organization  whether  there  will  also  he  native  ways 
of  bringing  about  a  change  from  the  former  to  the 
latter  of  these  conditions.  Whether  we  extend  the 
word  instinct  to  them,  in  view  of  their  deviation  from 
the  primary  pattern,  is  a  matter  of  choice  in  definition. 
They  might  well  be  distinguished  as  ‘central  instincts.’ 
Or,  since  they  would  depend  in  the  first  place  not  on 
specific  routings  of  nervous  energy,  but  on  the  nature 
of  the  nervous  system  itself,  the  needs  in  question 
would  presumably  be  the  same  for  every  animal  hav- 


64 


THE  NATUKAL  MAN 


ing  a  nervous  system;  it  would  be  proper  to  speak  of 
them,  then,  as  ^necessary  interests.’^ 

That  this  theory  may  be  of  some  use  in  explaining 
our  aesthetic  tendencies,  we  have  already  suggested. 
Consider  the  universal  tendency  to  rhythmic  expres¬ 
sion,  as  in  dancing,  music,  design,  various  forms  of 
play.  There  are  many  signs  that  the  appreciation  of 
rhythm  is  as  necessary  a  consequence  of  the  economy 
of  nervous  functions,  as  rhythmic  behavior  is  of  the 
economy  of  muscular  function,  of  respiratory  function, 
etc.  When  we  want  to  gain  the  full  flavor  of  any  sense- 
impression,  we  repeat  it  at  intervals,  as  in  tasting, 
stroking,  feeling  textures,  etc.  So,  too,  with  those 
perceptions  in  which  thought  is  mingled  with  sense. 
In  realizing  the  proportions  of  a  fagade,  a  series  of 
buttresses  or  a  segmented  cornice  aid  the  grasp.’’ 
Even  a  small  surface,  as  of  a  coin,  seems  more  com¬ 
pletely  known  when  divided:  the  spatial  perception 
joined  with  the  perception  of  number  gives,  as  it  were, 
a  perception  of  higher  order.  The  principle  may  be 
this :  that  to  appreciate  any  experience  in  its  totality 
we  must  resort  to  the  device  of  really  or  mimetically 
building  it  up  from  numerable  parts ;  so  that  whatever 
we  desire  to  hold  vividly  before  consciousness  we  will 
necessarily  tend  to  divide  and  recompose  by  segments 

2  Note  that  the  necessity  of  these  interests  is  here  described  not  as 
a  logical  but  as  a  constitutional  necessity.  This  necessity  depends  solely 
on  what  modes  of  central  nervous  operation  are  satisfactory  modes, 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  functions  of  the  central  nervous  system.  It 
is  thus  a  fundamentally  different  kind  of  ^necessary  interest^  from  that 
which  Professor  E.  B.  Perry  recognizes  in  the  satisfaction  of  interests 
generally:  this  latter  is  a  logically  necessary  interest,  i.e.,  for  a  mind 
sufficiently  reflective  to  make  a  class  of  its  own  interests. 


NECESSAKY  INTEEESTS 


65 


or  in  rhythmic  intervals.  Ehythm  would  then  be  a 
general  character  of  art  forms,  i.e.,  of  the  forms  we 
choose  for  heightened  perception,  because  of  a  neces¬ 
sary  condition  of  the  neural  substratum  of  cognition. 
In  this  sense  we  might  speak  of  rhythm  as  a  necessary 
interest.^ 

Can  these  necessary  interests  be  enumerated! 

It  seems  evident  to  me  that  many  names  which  have 
rumbled  through  theories  of  instinct  without  gaining 
any  definite  lodgment  have  been  aimed  at  this  place. 
We  have  heard  of  an  instinct  of  self-preservation;  and 
as  no  definite  stimulus  or  response  can  be  alleged  for 
such  an  instinct,  it  has  been  dropped  from  the  books. 
The  ‘will  to  live^  and  the  ‘will  to  power ^  have  been 
allowed  a  possible  place  in  metaphysics,  but  with  the 
distinct  understanding  that  they  have  no  status  in 
psychology.  It  has  not  been  noticed  apparently  that  it 
is  also  impossible  to  define  a  sense-stimulus  and  re¬ 
sponse  for  the  social  propensities  of  men,  which  in 
some  form  are  usually  held  to  be  instinctive. 

My  judgment  is  that  the  most  significant  of  human 
tendencies,  those  without  whicl^no  theory  of  instinct 
would  be  worth  its  salt  in  illuminating  human  nature, 
are  tendencies  of  this  central  sort.  They  are  conse¬ 
quences  of  the  fact  that  the  stutf  of  which  we  are  made^ 
works  better  in  one  way  than  in  another,  and  not  of  the 
fact  that  a  given  set  of  connections  is  arranged  to  start 
moving  by  a  certain  impact  from  outside.  I  should 
include  among  these  necessary  interests  our  sociability 

3  Mr.  Joseph  Lee  includes  rhythm  in  his  list  of  instincts.  Play  in 
Education,  1915,  ch.  xx. 


66 


THE  HATTJKAL  MAN 


as  well  as  our  curiosity,  and  hence  certain  major 
ingredients  of  ambition  and  the  family  a:ffections.  I 
have  mentioned  our  formal  interest  in  rhythm,  and  I 
should  add,  in  unity,  harmony,  differentiation,  com¬ 
pleteness,  and  simplicity.  As  for  self-preservation, 
we  may  find  a  place  for  it  as  follows : 

The  will  to  live,  for  a  being  with  a  mind,  must 
always  mean  the  will  to  he  mentally  alive  as  well  as 
to  he  physically  metabolizing.  The  presumption  is 
that  the  simple  fact  of  being  conscious,  other  things 
equal,  is  a  satisfactory  condition;  and  that  a  self- 
conscious  being  would  with  a  necessity  both  constitu¬ 
tional  and  logical  (in  Professor  Perry’s  sense)  tend 
to  preserve  and  to  increase  the  quantity  of  his  liveli¬ 
ness.  If  it  is  not  merely  the  contents  of  experience 
that  are  valuable,  but  the  process  of  experiencing,  it 
is  clear  that  so  far  as  a  being  is  self-conscious  he  will 
have  a  ‘will  to  live,’  or  an  ‘instinct  of  self-preserva¬ 
tion.  ’ 

In  these  necessary  interests,  we  have  the  most  sig¬ 
nificant  but  also  the  most  obscure  of  original  human 
tendencies.  It  is  they  that  have  been  the  chief  stum¬ 
bling  block  in  the  theory  of  instinct;  for  while  that 
theory  becomes  comparatively  trivial  when  they  are 
omitted,  it  has  always  been  muddled  when  they  have 
been  included.  The  attempt  to  assimilate  them  to  the 
type  of  stimulus  and  response  could  hardly  have 
ended  otherwise  than  in  confusion.  The  chief  diffi¬ 
culty  of  reaching  a  clear  and  exhaustive  enumeration 
of  these  tendencies  does  not  lie,  however,  in  their  pecu¬ 
liar  mechanism:  it  lies  in  the  fact  that  they  are  not 


NECESSAKY  INTEEESTS 


67 


distinct  and  separable  entities.  They  are  in  reality 
various  aspects  of  one  fundamental  instinct  or  neces¬ 
sary  interest.  We  have  spoken  of  the  tendency  of 
instincts  to  coalesce;  we  must  now  give  some  further 
attention  to  that  circumstance. 


CHAPTER  XI 


THE  WILL 

IT  is  notoriously  hard  to  read  the  motives  of  other 
men’s  acts.  And  while  we  have  a  position  of 
advantage  in  judging  the  motives  of  our  own  acts,  the 
chances  of  error  are  still  large.  A  writer  of  fiction 
might  fairly  be  allowed  to  clain;  knowledge  of  the 
minds  of  his  own  creations :  yet  even  here,  if  I  am  not 
mistaken,  there  is  a  visible  dread  of  dogmatism,  and 
romance  is  tending  to  return  to  the  psychological 
reticence  of  the  drama,  which  reveals  the  mind  chiefly 
through  situation  and  behavior. 

This  new  demand  for  objectivity  need  not  mean  that 
‘motives’  are  fictions.  It  may  well  mean  that  our 
theory  of  motives  is  unsatisfactory.  It  is  doubtless  a 
futile  question  whether  one  who  joins  the  colors  is 
actuated  by  pugnacity,  or  by  love  of  country,  or  by 
ambition,  or  by  mob  consciousness,  or  by  the  need  of 
shining  in  the  eyes  of  some  woman:  but  if  so,  it  is 
because  of  a  false  assumption  in  the  question. 

The  most  elementary  psychological  insight  will  show 
that  the  either-or  assumption  is  gratuitous,  since  the 
presence  of  one  of  these  motives  need  not  exclude 
another.  All  actual  motives  are  mixed.  Synthesis  or 
fusion  of  motives,  which  to  Holt  is  the  chief  moral 
obligation,  is  in  fact  the  universal  and  natural  prac- 


THE  WILL 


69 


tice.  But  the  question  I  wish  to  raise  is  not  whether 
motives  are  compounded :  it  is  rather  whether  they  are 
originally  separate.  It  is  here,  I  believe,  that  we  find 
the  root  of  the  difficulty. 

Can  we  say,  for  example,  that  curiosity  is  one  thing 
and  the  love  of  power  or  security  a  different  and  sepa¬ 
rable  thing?  The  interest  with  which  civilization  reads 
its  morning  paper,  the  disposition  to  gossip  and  to  hear 
gossip,  the  most  flagrant  acts  of  prying  or  eavesdrop¬ 
ping, — is  it  certain  that  these  are  to  be  put  down  to 
intellectual  hunger  and  not  to  the  ‘instinct  of  self- 
preservation’  (since  ignorance  is  undeniably  a  state 
of  peril),  or  to  the  ‘instinct  of  self-assertion’  (since 
knowledge  promises  control  of  persons  and  events)? 
If  the  superficial  observer  finds  it  hard  to  decide  such 
questions,  is  the  psychologist  in  a  happier  situation?^ 

A  mental  experiment,  that  is  to  say,  an  experiment 
in  imagination,  may  throw  some  light  on  this  matter 
of  the  relation  of  nominally  different  motives.  Imagine 
a  mind  at  the  beginning  of  its  career,  responding 
to  its  first  instinctive  impulse ;  and  then  to  its  second. 
Assume  that  this  second  experience  is  as  different 
from  the  first  as  possible,  involving  different  sense- 
tracts,  different  viscera,  and  different  muscles  through¬ 
out.  By  what  sign  would  the  second  experience  belong 
to  the  same  mind  as  the  first;  i.e.,  how  could  we  dis- 

1  Speaking  of  the  motives  of  ‘Hhose  dangerous  journeys  of  dis¬ 
covery,  etc.,  by  which  the  whole  earth  has  been  mapped  out  during  the 
last  four  hundred  years, ’’  Graham  Wallas  suggests  that  “perhaps, 
indeed,  it  is  this  desire  for  Fear,  rather  than  the  impulse  of  Curiosity, 
which  has  been  the  most  important  single  cause.  “  The  Great  Society, 
p.  89. 


70 


THE  NATUKAL  MAN 


tinguish  these  two  from  experiences  in  two  different 
minds  1  The  answer  is  both  obvions  and  simple :  if 
the  second  experience  is  an  experience  of  the  same 
mind,  it  will  appear  as  another  experience.  No  matter 
how  different  the  scenery  of  the  adventure,  the  new 
craving  is  still  another  craving,  the  groping  activity 
takes  on  a  tinge  of  expectation  because  another  grop¬ 
ing  had  preceded  it,  and  the  end  when  it  comes  will  be 
another  settlement.  In  brief,  what  marks  these  two 
experiences  as  belonging  to  the  same  mind  is  the 
incipient  generalization,  whereby  the  two  interests 
appear  as  two  interests,  i.e.,  as  two  cases  of  a  common 
value-meaning.  Only  when  successive  experiences, 
whatever  their  differences  of  content,  have  this  in 
common,  that  they  affect  for  better  or  for  w^orse  an 
identical  concern  in  fortune,  is  there  any  self  at  all. 
And  conversely,  wherever  there  is  a  self,  there  all 
experiences  are  referred  to  a  common  interest:  they 
are  being  perpetually  sorted  as  satisfactory  or  unsatis¬ 
factory  by  a  test  in  which  no  one  can  instruct  any  mind 
but  itself.  To  ask,  then,  whether  the  various  goods  of 
life,  or  the  various  values  indicated  by  our  instincts, 
have  a  common  character  is  to  ask  a  self-answering 
question.  No  satisfaction  is  such  except  by  grace  of 
the  fact  that  beneath  all  differences  it  presents  to  an 
identical  self  an  identical  meaning  with  every  other 
satisfaction. 

A  self  may  fairly  be  defined  as  a  permanent  prin¬ 
ciple  of  selection.  Only  experience  can  reveal  to  a 
self  what  qualities  are  possible,  and  what  are  to  be 
judged  as  agreeable  or  otherwise :  it  learns  empirically 


THE  WILL 


71 


what  things  are  good.  But  what  good  is  it  cannot 
learn  empirically;  since  the  use  of  this  knowledge  is 
implied  in  the  first  judgment.  Nevertheless,  experience 
has  everything  to  do  in  bringing  this  knowledge  into 
the  foreground  of  consciousness.  It  may  be  a  long 
journey  from  the  knowledge  which  we  can  only  use  to 
the  knowledge  we  can  wield  and  express, — as  long  as 
from  our  spontaneous  ^cutting  across  corners’  to  an 
enunciation  of  the  axiom  of  the  shortest  line.  A  long 
history  of  active  acceptance  and  rejection  is  necessary 
before  the  idea  of  good  becomes  an  item  of  self-con¬ 
sciousness,  laden  with  concrete  images.  The  dawn¬ 
ing  of  such  self-possession  means  the  achievement  of  a 
more  or  less  stable  policy  toward  incoming  suggestions 
and  impulses.  And  to  have  a  stable  policy  is  to  have, 
in  the  specific  sense  of  the  word,  a  will. 

Will  in  this  sense  is  a  matter  of  degree.  At  an 
alarm  of  fire,  a  schoolboy  may  respond  by  running  to 
the  scene  approximately  ^without  a  thought’:  in  a  few 
more  years  the  same  stimulus  encounters  an  order  of 
life  having  a  momentum  of  its  own,  and  if  it  wins  the 
day,  it  is  by  an  act  of  ^will.’  Will  exists  when,  and 
in  so  far  as,  any  instinctive  impulse  has  first  to  obtain 
the  consent  of  a  ruling  policy  before  pursuing  its 
course.  The  policy  of  a  self  is  its  acquired  interpreta¬ 
tion  of  its  own  central  and  necessary  interest.  And 
thus,  if  men  are  alike  in  nature,  we  should  be  able  to 
perceive  at  the  center  of  all  central  instincts”  and 
^‘necessary  interests,”  and  indeed  within  all  instincts 
whatever,  a  nucleus  of  common  meaning  which  we 
would  he  justified  in  calling  the  fundamental  instinct 


72 


THE  NATURAL  MAN 


of  man,‘  the  substance  of  the  human  will.  No  one  de¬ 
scription  of  this  central  instinct  is  likely  to  he  suffi¬ 
cient  ;  but  the  phrase  ^  ‘  the  will  to  power  ^  ’  is  capable  of 
conveying  a  large  part  of  the  truth. 

To  illustrate: 

It  is  not  hard  to  see  that  many  of  the  simple  and 
general  instincts  deal  with  the  fluxes  of  power,  in  one 
way  or  another,  and  may  be  referred  to  a  general  vital 
interest  in  conserving  or  increasing  power.  Food¬ 
getting  instincts  reach  their  apparent  goal  in  the  sat¬ 
isfying  of  hunger;  yet  it  would  be  a  bold  psychology 
that  would  affirm  that  eating  to  the  human  species  has 
no  more  general  meaning  than  quenching  this  craving. 
Hunger,  I  dare  say,  is  felt  as  a  diminished  status,  a 
sign  of  a  dependence  on  material  intake,  which  eating 
both  confesses  and  temporarily  removes.  It  is  per¬ 
haps  the  element  of  physical  humility  which  makes 
the  taking  of  food  a  fit  occasion  for  sociability:  for 
here  is  the  most  natural  and  permanent  democracy, 
that  of  dependence  on  material  nature  for  continued 
life.  But  the  social  instinct  would  hardly  make  so 
much  of  a  mutual  confession  of  dependence  if  there 
were  not  also  a  mutual  emancipation.  Eating,  by 
itself,  is  a  form  of  conquest,  surrounding  what  is  alien 
and  making  it  a  part  of  ourselves.  The  satisfaction 
of  food  to  a  thoroughly  hungry  man  is  less  a  matter 
of  the  aesthetics  of  taste  than  a  consciousness  of  making 
something  his  own,  a  sense  of  mastery.  But  beyond 
this,  he  is  aware  of  eating  as  releasing  the  springs  of 
his  rightful  attitude  toward  the  world,  his  control 
of  his  own  fortune.  In  both  ways,  the  satisfaction  of 


THE  WILL  73 

hunger  is  at  the  same  time  a  satisfaction  of  a  ^^love 
of  power/’ 

Play  hardly  bears  the  conventional  aspect  of  the  will 
to  power.  It  seems  to  consist,  as  we  noticed  above,  in 
a  social  soft-pedalling  of  the  major  instincts,  rather 
than  in  any  distinct  tendency  of  its  own.  Yet  the  play 
world  may  be  accurately  described,  on  its  psychologi¬ 
cal  side,  as  the  world  of  practice  in  mastery.  In  play, 
growing  humanity  carries  on  a  career  with  plastic 
materials,  such  as  it  can  control  with  its  small  powers, 
until  it  is  ready  to  throw  away  its  playthings  and  try 
a  fall  with  realities. 

Fear  is  a  negative  expression  of  our  concern  for 
power.  The  general  element  running  through  all  the 
scores  of  situations  which  excite  fear  is  the  presence 
of  an  environment  for  which  none  of  our  instinctive 
powers  fit  us.  In  water,  or  fire,  or  chasms  of  air,  or  the 
world  of  ghosts,  our  instincts  lose  their  grip.  In  such 
event  a  residual  instinct,  felt  as  fear,  tends  to  remove 
us  from  the  uncanny  world  to  one  in  which  we  may 
once  more  say  I  can.  Thus  fear  also  is  a  form  of  the 
desire  to  be  in  a  relation  of  power  to  experience. 

I  do  not  doubt  that  such  tendencies  as  acquisition, 
construction  and  destruction,  the  love  of  being  a  cause,  ^ 
and  all  other  human  loves  and  interests  will  show 
themselves,  upon  examination,  in  a  similar  light;  for 
the  will  to  power  is  perhaps  the  nearest  name  that  has 
yet  been  found  for  the  most  central  of  instincts.  The 
will  to  live  is  in  some  ways  a  less  misleading  name, 
and  with  sufficient  study  may  be  found  to  convey  as 
much.  But  in  man,  the  will  to  live  must  take  the  form 


74 


THE  NATURAL  MAN 


of  the  will  to  live  as  a  7nan;  and  this  involves  mnch 
more  than  the  cherishing  of  existence, — it  involves 
dealing  with  a  world  of  objects  and  resistances,  and 
holding  intact  one  ^s  validity  in  the  midst  of  that  inter¬ 
course.  More  than  that,  it  implies  the  process  of  the 
artist,  that  of  imposing  upon  the  external  mass  an 
element  of  form  and  order  that  is  first  one’s  own. 
This  active  and  creative  quality  is  better  suggested 
by  the  phrase,  the  will  to  power. 

This  phrase  need  not  be  regarded  with  aversion 
because  it  has  been  used  by  Nietzsche;  nor  because  it 
allies  itself  with  the  most  glaring  defects  of  temper. 
•Nietzsche’s  error  is  not  that  he  struck  a  false  note 
in  human  nature;  but  firstly  that  he  supposed  his 
expression  to  be  adequate,  and  secondly  that  he 
thought  of  power  as  intrinsically  competitive,  a  good 
which  can  be  gained  by  one  only  at  the  expense  of 
another.  In  our  use  of  the  phrase  we  shall  at  the  out¬ 
set  reject  both  these  errors.  We  do  not  regard  the 
will  to  power  as  an  adequate  name  for  the  central 
instinct :  but  it  represents  that  instinct  in  a  form  which 
we,  of  this  age,  have  especial  need  to  understand.  And 
we  reject  the  competitive  relation  as  necessarily  im¬ 
plied  in  the  concept  of  power.  Power  over  nature  is 
the  unit  of  all  actual  commonwealth.  And  the  power 
of  men  over  one  another  may  be  at  the  same  time  a 
power-for, — as  the  power  which  a  parent  has  for,  and 
over,  a  child.  And  the  rightful  position  of  one  man 
toward  others  cannot  be  described  without  this  con¬ 
ception:  for  this  position  does  not  consist  merely  in 
being  amiably  disposed  towards  them,  but  rather  in 


THE  WILL 


75 


standing  in  loco  Dei  toward  them,  and  acting  as  a 
Providence  to  them.  To  love  mankind  and  to  seek  this 
power  are  not  separable ;  and  it  is  well  to  be  reminded 
that  love  without  this  element  of  responsible  ambition 
is  not  fit  to  survive  upon  this  planet.  The  will  to 
power  is  Protean,  but  so  is  the  instinct  of  man.  We 
shall  therefore  refer  to  the  human  will,  so  far  as  it 
is  embodied  in  human  instinct,  as  the  will  to  power. 

Note.  Other  views  of  the  will :  the  Freudian  view. 

We  have  argued  the  question  whether  the  self  is  a  bundle 
of  distinct  cravings  or  a  single  craving  with  many  forms,  as 
if  it  were  a  question  of  logical  necessity.  Yet  it  would  seem 
to  be  a  question  for  whose  answer  men  might  fairly  be  re¬ 
ferred  to  their  own  experience.  And  I  agree  that  what  the 
self  is,  and  what  the  will  is,  are  empirical  questions  whose 
answer  each  self  holds  within  its  own  experience;  only,  it 
sometimes  requires  a  touch  of  logic  to  induce  the  human  mind 
to  face  the  facts. 

Radical  empiricism  in  psychology  once  meant  seeing  noth¬ 
ing  of  the  mind  but  a  swirl  of  separable  ‘states’;  a  still  later 
empiricism  professes  to  find  nothing  of  the  mind  but  a  system 
of  behavior.  But  empiricism  is  not  incapable  of  finding  con¬ 
nections  and  unities, — if  they  exist.  The  perception  of  unity 
in  psychology,  though  clearer  to  Plato  than  to  Aristotle,  is  no 
prerogative  of  a  monistic  metaphysics.  I  doubt  whether  any¬ 
one  will  accuse  Buddha  of  being  a  monist,  and  he  certainly 
did  his  best  to  destroy  the  theory  of  a  soul ;  yet  Buddha  after 
referring  all  suffering  to  desire,  referred  all  desire  to  a  single 
craving  which  he  described  as  the  craving  for  individuality 
or  separateness  of  being.  And  modern  naturalism  is  not 
without  tendencies  of  the  same  kind.  If  mind  has  an  evolu¬ 
tionary  history,  and  particularly  if  it  has  grown  by  “dif¬ 
ferentiation  and  integration”  from  the  simple  to  the  com¬ 
plex,  nothing  would  be  more  natural  than  to  derive  (as  G.  H. 


76 


THE  NATUKAL  MAN 


Schneider  has  tried  to  do  (p.  24),  or  M.  Hachet-Souplet)  onr 
many  instincts  from  a  primordial  instinct  or  tropism;  and 
nothing  would  be  more  natural  than  to  suppose  that  these 
kinships  of  origin  would  remain  as  kinships  of  quality  and 
meaning. 

But  evolutionary  psychology,  and  in  fact  all  genetic  psy¬ 
chology,  is  necessarily  a  mixture  of  empiricism  with  a  degree 
of  speculation.  It  is  therefore  a  matter  of  theoretical  inter¬ 
est  when  a  group  of  psychiatrists,  presumably  on  the  basis 
of  clinical  experience  alone,  find  themselves  reducing  all 
human  desires  to  a  single  root  as  a  working  hypothesis. 
“From  the  descriptive  standpoint,’’  says  C.  G.  Jung,  “psy¬ 
choanalysis  accepts  the  multiplicity  of  instincts.  From  the 
genetic  standpoint  it  is  otherwise.  It  regards  the  multiplicity 
of  instincts  as  issuing  out  of  a  relative  unity,  the  primitive 
libido.  It  recognizes  that  definite  quantities  of  the  primitive 
libido  are  split  off,  associated  with  the  recently  created  func¬ 
tions  and  finally  merged  with  them.  ...  We  term  libido  that 
energy  which  manifests  itself  by  vital  processes,  which  is  sub¬ 
jectively  perceived  as  aspiration,  longing,  and  striving.  We 
see  in  the  diversity  of  natural  phenomena  the  desire,  the 
libido,  in  most  diverse  applications  and  forms.  In  early 
childhood,  we  find  libido  at  first  wholly  in  the  form  of  the 
instinct  of  nutrition.  .  .  .  Claparede  in  a  conversation  once 
remarked  that  we  could  as  well  use  the  term  ^interest.’ 
Others  beside  Claparede  have  observed  that  the  Freudian 
psychology  has  important  philosophical  bearings,  which  are 
disguised  by  the  misleading  emphasis  of  its  terms.^  But  if 
‘libido’  is  too  specific  in  its  connotation,  the  term  ‘interest’ 
is  too  lacking  in  descriptive  force,  while  ^ I’ elan  vitaV  is  not 
intended  as  a  psychological  term  at  all.  The  ‘will  to  power’ 

2  Theory  of  Psychoanalysis,  pages  40,  42. 

3  Dr.  James  J.  Putnam  has  repeatedly  called  attention  to  this  point. 
‘  ‘  Let  its  name  be  altered,  and  its  functions  be  but  slightly  more 
expanded,  and  we  have  Bergson’s  poussee  vitale,  the  understudy  of  self- 
activity.  ”  Journal  of  Abnormal  Psychology,  August- September,  1913. 


THE  WILL 


77 


escapes  all  these  defects.  Sex-love  itself  which  to  the  Freud¬ 
ian  mind  seems  the  deepest  thing  in  human  nature  is  far 
better  placed  as  an  expression  of  this  will ;  for  what  more  pro¬ 
found  assertion  of  power  is  our  nature  capable  of  than  in 
that  impulse  which,  assuming  responsibility  for  the  life  and 
welfare  of  another,  may  also  summon  a  new  life  into  existence  ? 
The  greatness  of  the  sex-motive  lies  in  the  junction  which  it 
is  able  to  effect  between  the  human  and  the  superhuman 
ranges  of  power.  But  to  invert  the  relation  and  make  all  will 
a  form  of  ‘libido^  is  simply  ex-centric;  and  can  yield  at  best 
a  Ptolemaic  system  of  psychology.  Ptolemy’s  system  for  an 
Egyptian  of  the  second  century  was  a  great  achievement,  and 
had  at  least  so  much  of  truth, — that  the  world  has  some  center 
of  gravity. 


CHAPTEE  XII 


MIND  AND  BODY:  THE  LAST  ANALYSIS 

Many  questions  about  human  nature  are  left 
unanswered  by  a  discussion  of  instincts  and 
the  will.  For  example,  we  have  given  no  account  of 
personality.  The  will  to  power  is  not  personality;  it 
reveals  nothing  of  the  nature  of  personal  differences. 
Upon  such  questions  we  shall  not  here  enter:  for  it 
is  the  business  of  psychology  to  find  first  what  the 
common  clay  is,  and  only  then  to  enquire  how  it 
assumes  its  individual  shapes.  But  if  there  is  a  com¬ 
mon  clay,  a  craving  which  in  some  way  underlies  and 
explains  the  rest,  we  are  bound  to  take  at  least  a  glance 
at  the  question  what  this  clay  itself  is  made  of,  or 
whether  it  must  be  taken  as  an  ultimate  fact.  We 
shall  accordingly  make  a  brief  excursion  into  the  field 
of  speculation,  or  of  ultimate  analysis. 

The  concept  of  energy  always  stands  at  the  elbow, 
with  promises  of  solving  riddles:  it  seemed  likely  at 
one  time  to  afford  the  common  term  for  the  dualism 
of  matter  and  motion;  it  has  tempted  many  since  the 
time  of  Leibniz  into  a  hope  of  passing  from  body  to 
mind  and  back  again.  If  the  will  to  power  could  be 
understood,  in  Nietzsche’s  terms,  as  a  need  to  give 
utterance  to  the  energy  that  is  in  us,  we  should  be  on 
the  way  to  a  natural  understanding  of  human  nature. 


MIND  AND  BODY 


79 


All  instinctive  tendencies,  and  so  of  course  the  cen¬ 
tral  instinct,  are  inherited  with  the  body;  they  all 
expend  the  energy  developed  by  the  bodily  machine. 
The  nutrition  of  the  body  and  of  the  nervous  centers 
produces  a  readiness  to  act,  and  indeed  an  uneasiness 
if  action  is  delayed.  If  we  assume  that  our  craving 
accompanies  this  condition  of  readiness  (to  adopt 
Thorndike  ^s  term)  both  of  the  channels  of  discharge 
and  of  the  centers  themselves,  we  shall  have  a  physio¬ 
logical  picture  much  more  in  accord  with  our  concept 
of  a  central  instinct  than  any  that  could  be  furnished 
by  the  schema  of  stimulus  and  response.  The  pres¬ 
ence  of  energy  as  a  tension  or  charge  serves  here  in 
lieu  of  a  stimulus,  acting  immediately,  without  afferent 
apparatus.  The  discharge  itself,  the  transformation 
of  potential  into  kinetic  energy,  may  he  the  primary 
physical  basis  of  ‘satisfaction.’ 

I  should  not  hesitate  to  look  in  this  direction  for  a 
physical  theory  of  the  primitive  will  to  power.  I 
should  not  hesitate,  because  I  am  “not  afraid  of  fall¬ 
ing  into  my  own  inkpot.”  No  one  who  thinks  twice 
can  be  in  any  danger  of  identifying  the  energy  which 
is  measurable  in  terms  of  mv^  or  fd  with  the  ‘energy’ 
of  his  own  will  or  its  fluctuating  ‘tensions’  of  desire. 
Yet  the  ambiguity  of  these  words  is  not  accidental; 
no  doubt  the  two  phases  of  energy  belong  together, 
the  one  as  substance  and  the  other  as  shadow.  But  in 
this  fact,  there  is  nothing  to  indicate  which  is  the 
shadow.  In  truth,  when  we  seek  for  physical  expres¬ 
sions,  we  have  left  behind  the  direct  facts  of  expe¬ 
rience  and  have  begun  to  spin  hypotheses  for  the  sake 


80 


THE  NATUKAL  MAH 


of  connecting  these  facts  with  others.  We  do  not  by 
this  route  penetrate  more  deeply  into  the  nature  of 
desire.  If  we  wish  to  know  what  desire  is  made  of, 
we  should  do  better  to  seek  it  within  the  completer 
expressions  of  the  will  itself,  as  we  know  them. 

If  we  can  anywhere  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  ultimate 
character  of  the  will,  it  should  be  in  our  answer  to  the 
work  of  an  artist.  For  it  is  his  work  to  bring  the  deep¬ 
est  things  in  us  into  active  response  to  the  deep  things 
of  the  world  outside.  Eecently  I  saw  a  drama  which 
ventured  to  bring  to  mind  the  travesty  which  often 
goes  by  the  name  of  Justice;  and  I  returned  depressed 
and  resentful  and^  disturbed  by  what  I  had  seen. 
There  had  been  forced  upon  my  attention  a  world  of 
man-made  necessity,  the  Law,  in  whose  meshes  man 
himself  could  perish  both  as  victim  and  as  adminis¬ 
trator.  I  saw  the  efforts  of  men  to  rise  humanly  above 
this  their  own  work.  I  saw  a  world  of  blindness  and 
futile  sympathies,  pompous  certainties  that  are  false, 
and  sentimental  certainties  that  are  vain;  and  men 
going  down  in  despair  because  no  one  but  the  poet 
saw  fiercely  enough  the  realities  which  should  have 
outweighed  the  whole  pretentious  momentum  of  habit 
and  routine.  I  knew  that  the  poet  spoke  some  untruth ; 
and  also  that  he  saw  and  spoke  more  truth  than  men 
are  usually  privileged  to  see.  And  I  knew  also  what 
is  important  for  us  at  this  moment,  that  the  feelings 
and  desires  of  men  (so  many  partial  applications  of 
will)  are  made  by  such  perceptions  as  these. 

Desire,  or  more  generally,  feeling,  is  not  something 
disparate  from  thought:  feeling  is  a  mass  of  idea  at 


MIND  AND  BODY 


81 


work  within  us.  It  is  a  thorough  fallacy  to  suppose 
that  one  can  feel  or  care  about  anything  without 
knowledge,  or  that  feeling  and  knowledge  are  inversely 
proportional  to  one  another.  The  theory  of  feeling 
has  been  seriously  distorted  by  confusing  feeling  with 
more  or  less  incontinent  or  futile  or  unstable  types  of 
motor  discharge,  ‘^emotional  temperaments’^  and  the 
like.  Feeling  is  an  experience  of  ‘^making  up  one’s 
mind,”  rising  to  an  occasion,  appreciating  something 
to  the  extent  of  mobilizing  the  powers  of  action.  The 
proper  contrast  to  feeling  is  not  thought  but  callous¬ 
ness;  and  wherever  I  am  insensitive  to  an  interest  or 
concern  which  finer  members  of  the  race  care  about,  I 
may  know  that  the  root  of  my  deficiency  is  a  lack  of 
intelligence  or  vision. 

If  we  are  right  in  this,  feeling,  whether  in  the  form 
of  uneasiness,  desire,  aspiration,  or  satisfaction,  is 
thought  more  or  less  in  control  of  things,^  and  will,  in 

1  In  terms  of  a  common  phrase,  the  common  element  in  value  is  idea 
“making  good. It  is  easier  to  see  that  making  good  is  a  desirable 
state  of  affairs,  than  to  see  that  it  is  the  desirable  state  of  affairs.  To 
make  good  requires  that  one  has  first  an  idea  of  something  worth 
making,  something  that  has  value  independent  of  the  process  of  realizing 
it.  Then  to  realize  it  has  the  additional  value  of  giving  me  a  sense  of 
validity, — my  ‘idea’  has  come  true.  But  what  we  want  to  find  out  is 
the  quality  of  this  presupposed  value:  what  constitutes  the  desirableness 
of  the  object  of  my  idea?  Eealism  in  the  theory  of  values  holds  that 
the  value  is  there,  in  the  object, — an  ultimate  quality,  and  there’s  an 
end  of  it.  Eelativism  holds  that  value  is  the  relation  of  the  object  to 
my  welfare,  or  my  instinct,  or  my  desire, — desire,  instinct,  etc.,  being 
assumed  as  given  facts  about  which  nothing  more  can  be  said,  except  to 
analyze  their  physiological  basis,  as  above  attempted.  I  hold  that  either 
of  these  solutions,  taken  as  final,  simply  gives  up  the  problem.  What 
we  desire,  we  do  not  desire  helplessly,  because  we  are  so  constituted  that 
a  given  object  sets  certain  mechanisms  tingling.  What  we  desire  has  an 
account  to  give  to  consciousness  itself,  and, — as  we  have  maintained, — 


82 


THE  NATUEAL'  MAN 


the  last  analysis,  is  thought  assuming  control  of 
reality. 

It  would  follow  from  this  that  human  instincts,  all 
of  them, — while  from  the  standpoint  of  physical  theory 
they  are  such  stuff  as  solar  systems  are  made  of,  are 
from  a  metaphysical  standpoint  such  stuff  as  dreams, 
ideas,  and  reasonings  are  made  of. 

Pragmatic  writers,  in  the  interest  of  showing  that  all 
thought  has  an  active  meaning,  have  sometimes  gone 
to  great  lengths  in  exhibiting  the  logical  qualities  of 
instinct  and  tropism.  Charles  Peirce  does  not  hesi¬ 
tate  to  say  that  ^  ^  In  point  of  fact  a  syllogism  virtually 
takes  place  when  we  irritate  the  foot  of  a  decapitated 
frogy’2  force  of  such  interpretations  is  not 

an  account  which  in  general  terms  is  identical  in  all  cases  of  desire.  We 
must  penetrate  the  nature  of  the  independent  good  as  it  appears  to  con¬ 
sciousness.  For  example,  suppose  I  care  for  music  and  exert  myself  to 
be  able  to  make  music.  There  is  satisfaction  in  the  achieving;  but  there 
must  have  been  a  prior  satisfaction  in  the  music.  It  is  this  prior  satis¬ 
faction  of  which  I  propose  that  it  also  is  a  case  of  thought  making 
good.  The  value  of  music,  I  would  maintain,  is  that  it  sets  before  us  a 
world  of  which  it  would  be  too  little  to  say  that  it  was  auspicious  to 
our  ears,  or  with  Kant,  to  our  imagination;  the  value  of  music  is  that 
it  summons  up  through  the  vehicle  of  a  mass  of  tone  amenable  to  our 
thought  the  entire  reality  of  our  experience,  in  vaguely  generalized 
situations  and  moods,  with  reflective  or  contemplative  mastery.  And  I 
should  say  the  same  of  our  more  organic  satisfactions.  On  -this  basis 
we  can  do  justice  to  both  realism  and  relativism.  To  realism  it  seems 
that  desire  is  defined  by  the  good,  the  good  being  defined  by  itself;  to 
relativism  it  seems  that  the  good  is  defined  by  desire.  From  our  point 
of  view  the  good  is  defined  not  by  itself,  but  in  relation  to  us;  yet  not 
to  us  as  beings  fated  to  desire  this  or  that, — rather  as  beings  capable 
of  thinking  and  knowing  this  and  that,  and  the  whole  of  things  through 
them.  To  this  extent,  good  is  objective. 

2  Instinct  has  sometimes  been  called  an  unconscious  reason,  not  be¬ 
cause  there  are  any  actual  syllogisms  in  play,  but  because  in  reaching 
what  to  consciousness  is  pleasant,  it  reaches  what  to  nature  is  fit, — as  if 


MIND  AND  BODY 


83 


to  show  that  logic  is  permeated  by  psychology:  it  is 
rather  to  show  that  psychology  is  permeated  by  logic. 
That  which  from  the  standpoint  of  nature  seems  instru¬ 
mental  becomes,  when  we  take  a  truly  psychological 
instead  of  a  biological  view  of  the  object  of  value,  the 
substance  of  the  end  itself.  Instinct,  too,  in  the  last 
analysis  can  be  understood  as  a  wholly  ideal  activity, — 
an  activity  of  ideas.  If  there  is  any  virtue  in  giving 
a  name  to  the  ultimate  stuff  of  human  nature,  it  would 
be  more  like  thought  than  like  physical  energy;  and, 
if  I  may  venture  a  final  leap  of  speculation,  more,  I 
believe,  like  conversation  than  like  solitary  thought. 

What  ideas  they  are  that  enter  into  this  original 
stuff  we  do  not  here  enquire  in  detail.  But  one  ques¬ 
tion  we  can  no  longer  postpone.  We  have  made  no 
place  for  a  moral  quality  in  original  human  nature; 
yet  it  is  by  this  quality  that  man,  according  to  an 
ancient  tradition,  is  thought  to  be  chiefly  distinguished. 
This  question  is  the  subject  for  our  next  study. 

it  knew  and  planned  the  utility  of  its  behavior.  It  is  hardly  supposed 
by  those  who  use  this  phrase  that  pleasantness  is  a  dim  recognition  of 
the  fact  of  fitness:  this  would  be  to  reduce  the  value  called  pleasant¬ 
ness,  to  a  function  of  a  cognition, — a  highly  speculative  procedure  to 
say  the  least.  We  certainly  have  no  need  to  assume  that  what  con¬ 
sciousness  means  by  its  end  is  coincident  with  what  ‘nature’  means; 
it  may  be  far  simpler,  and  yet  none  the  less  real. 


PAET  III 


CONSCIENCE 


CHAPTER  XIII 


THE  INTEREST  IN  JUSTICE 

WHEN  Aristotle  said  that  man  is  by  nature  a 
political  animal,  he  did  not  leave  this  notable 
saying  uninterpreted.  It  is  the  faculty  of  speech,  he 
explains,  which  marks  man  for  a  civic  existence;  and 
by  speech  we  are  to  understand  not  the  simple  power 
to  make  articulate  signs  as  do  many  animal  species,  but 
the  power  to  coin  signs  for  general  ideas,  and  particu¬ 
larly  for  ideas  relating  to  justice  and  injustice.  We 
may  put  Aristotle  ^s  meaning  in  this  way :  the  communi¬ 
ties  which  men  make  are  political  communities,  as  dis¬ 
tinct  from  simple  defensive  or  co-operative  aggrega¬ 
tions,  because  men  are  fitted  by  nature  to  frame  ideas 
of  fair  and  unfair  dealing,  of  right  and  wrong,  and  to 
use  them.  The  life  of  an  idea  consists  in  being  recog¬ 
nized  and  applied  in  the  concrete;  a  state  is  a  com¬ 
munity  in  which  the  idea  of  justice  has  a  chance  for 
life. 

We  need  not  debate  here  the  question  of  priority, — 
i.e.,  whether  political  society  exists  for  the  sake  of  a 
morally  reasoned  life,  or  whether  the  moral  reason 
exists  for  the  sake  of  a  political  society.  Biological 
interpretations  of  human  life  would  prefer  the  second 
alternative,  at  least  as  a  preliminary  hypothesis.  I 
shall  simply  point  out  in  passing  that  a  psychological 


88 


CONSCIENCE 


interpretation  would  have  much  to  say  for  Aristotle’s 
way  of  putting  it. 

For  our  social  impulses,  when  we  examine  them,  can 
be  seen  to  depend  to  a  large  extent  upon  a  need  to  put 
our  various  thinking  powers  into  operation.  We  have 
spoken  of  sociability  as  if  it  were  an  instinct  by  itself, 
and  of  curiosity  as  if  it  were  another  instinct  by  itself. 
But  if  we  should  subtract  from  the  natural  interest  in 
social  life  whatever  comes  through  the  enquiring  sides 
of  argument  and  conversation,  and  through  persuading 
others,  managing  and  planning  for  others,  we  should 
deal  sociability  a  severe  blow.  And  if  we  should  sub¬ 
tract  from  our  natural  interest  in  public  life — the 
political  development  of  sociability, — whatever  comes 
from  the  discussion  of  personalities,  laws,  principles, 
quarrels,  wars,  strands  of  history,  legend,  custom,  on 
their  ethical  side,  we  should  lose  much  of  its  normal 
motive.  Political  life  is,  as  Aristotle  later  described 
it,  an  arena  for  distinguished  action,  a  conspicuous 
j ousting-place  for  contending  principles  and  men  hav¬ 
ing  much  energy  to  discharge.  And  if  you  will  watch 
where  the  interest  is  hottest  you  will  see  that  it  is  there 
where  questions  of  expediency,  of  bread  and  butter 
and  prosperity,  have  merged  into  questions  of  rights 
and  obligations;  or  where  questions  of  a  man’s  ability 
and  record  have  deepened  into  questions  of  his  char¬ 
acter  and  honor.  It  is  there  where  the  responses  of 
indignation,  chivalry,  applause,  resentment,  loyalty, 
condemnation,  the  responses  of  our  ethical  nature, 
have  been  called  out.  We  are  social  and  political 
creatures,  at  least  in  part,  because  we  need  to  inject 


THE  INTEREST  IN  JUSTICE 


89 


our  reasons  and  our  moral  perceptions  into  the  world’s 
work.  We  build  states,  at  least  in  part,  because  of 
this  will  to  power.  So  far  we  can  follow  Aristotle.^ 

But  here  our  question  arises.  If  this  particular 
form  of  mental  activity  is  characteristic  of  the  species, 
and  helps  to  produce  such  distinctive  products  as  laws 
and  states  (surely  as  indicative  of  man  as  the  habits 
and  homes  of  the  beasts),  we  must  find  some  place 
for  it  in  original  human  nature.  Shall  we  say  that 
there  is  a  native  moral  sense  in  man,  a  moral  instinct ; 
or  if  these  expressions  are  inept,  what  account  shall 
we  give  of  the  untaught  value  which  humanity  places 
upon  justice  ?  It  is  usual  for  writers  who  view  instinct 
in  terms  of  situation  and  response  not  to  include  moral 
behavior  among  the  original  tendencies,  but  to  regard 
it  as  derivative  and  composite.  It  could  be  thought 
to  develop  in  the  form  of  altruistic  sentiment  from  the 
maternal  instinct  (Sutherland) ;  or  from  pugnacity,  as 
pugnacity  becomes  a  disinterested  resentment’  (Wes- 

1  And  we  may  also  agree  in  the  place  that  he  gives  to  speech.  That 
impulse  to  “vocalization”  which  we  included  among  our  units  of  be¬ 
havior  would  not  exist  in  us  as  it  does  unless  it  were  destined  to  take 
part  in  a  more  comprehensive  tendency.  Thorndike  very  justly  observes 
that  it  first  appears  as  an  aimless  impulse  (The  Original  Nature  of 
Man,  pp.  135-138);  but  it  is  one  of  the  common  facts  of  our  more 
elaborate  tendencies  that  their  ingredients  assemble  themselves  in  sepa¬ 
rate  and  leisurely  manner  in  the  course  of  growth.  It  is  quite  compatible 
with  its  primitive  aimlessness  that  the  talking  impulse  should  be  a  part 
of  some  more  general  tendency,  be  it  reason,  sociability,  or  ‘the  political 
faculty.  ’ 

Behaviorism  would  read  the  relation  the  other  way  around.  Thus  John 
R.  Watson  (Behavior,  1914,  pp.  321,  319) :  “The  lack  of  language  habits 
forever  differentiates  brute  from  man”;  remarking,  “We  say  nothing 
of  reasoning  since  we  do  not  admit  this  as  a  genuine  type  of  human 
behavior  except  as  a  special  form  of  language  habit.” 


90 


CONSCIENCE 


termarck)  turned  first  outward  and  then  inward.  For 
McDougall  moral  judgment  is  a  complex  attitude  in 
which  the  ‘self-regarding  sentiment/  interacting  with 
social  likes  and  dislikes  has  the  chief  role.  Thorndike 
does  not  positively  exclude  it  from  our  native  endow¬ 
ment,  but  so  far  fails  to  verify  its  presence.  He  says 
(The  Original  Nature  of  Man,  p.  202) :  “No  innate 
difference  of  response  to  ‘right’  from  ‘wrong’  acts 
is  listed  here,  in  spite  of  the  opinions  of  a  majority  of 
students  of  ethics,  and  the  authority  of  Lloyd  Morgan, 
who  says  emphatically: 

Among  civilized  people  conscience  is  innate.  Intuitions  of 
right  and  wrong  are  a  part  of  that  moral  nature  which  we 
have  inherited  from  our  forefathers.  Just  as  we  inherit 
common  sense,  an  instinctive  judgment  in  intellectual  matters, 
so  too  do  we  inherit  that  instinctive  judgment  in  matters  of 
right  and  wrong  which  forms  an  important  element  in  con¬ 
science  (’85,  p.  307). 

So  much,  however,  is  clear:  that  no  account  of 
human  nature  can  pretend  to  have  touched  the  impor¬ 
tant  points  unless  it  shows,  in  terms  of  its  own  theory, 
how  it  is  that  a  man  can  become  what  we  call  a  moral 
agent,  or  a  political  animal.  And  we  have  a  double 
concern  in  this  subject,  since  the  human  conscience  is 
at  once,  in  some  sort  of  germ,  deposited  in  man’s  origi¬ 
nal  nature,  and  at  the  same  time  one  of  the  chief 
instruments  in  his  remaking.  What  account,  then,  can 
we  give  of  the  moral  aspect  of  human  nature  f 


CHAPTER  XIV 


CONSCIENCE  AND  THE  GENERAL  WILL 

There  is  no  need  to  assume  an  original  moral 
sense  in  order  to  account  for  the  expression, 
‘‘You  ought, or  at  least  for  some  closely  similar 
expression.  If  human  nature  is  equipped  with 
instincts  such  as  we  have  described,  and  with  the 
preferences  that  go  with  them,  and  if  these  interests 
are  mightily  affected  by  the  neighbor’s  behavior,  a 
generalizing  animal  would  hardly  fail  to  perceive  the 
value  of  an  habitual  disposition  on  the  neighbor’s 
part  to  consider  the  feelings  of  others ;  and  a  language¬ 
using  animal  would  hardly  fail  to  invent  a  term  to 
express  to  his  neighbor  his  sense  of  the  importance  of 
that  disposition.  What  most  of  us  strongly  prefer 
you  should  do  would  inevitably  be  conveyed  to  you  by 
a  phrase  such  as,  “You  ought  to  behave  thus  and  so,”^ 
in  which  the  ‘ought’  would  imply  that  this  line  of  con¬ 
duct  is  such  as  would  follow  from  the  fixed  habit  of 
‘consideration.’  It  would  remind  you  simply  of  a 

1  ‘  Inevitably,  ’  I  say :  but  note  that  this  word  ‘  inevitably  ’  assumes 
that  it  would  occur  to  us,  instead  of  simply  growling  at  your  encroach¬ 
ments,  to  appeal  to  your  intelligence  and  self-control.  This  is  a  large 
assumption,  and  may  be  found  to  be  the  whole  genetic  question.  Such 
an  appeal  is  used  only  when  the  addressee  is  supposed  free  and  com¬ 
petent,  i.e.,  something  of  a  psychologist,  as  we  said.  And  conversely, 
only  then  can  the  members  of  a  group  be  treated  as  free,  when  they  can 
be  approached  with  an  ‘ought.’ 


92 


CONSCIENCE 


certain  permanent  condition  of  peaceable  living,  that 
of  being  a  reasonably  good  practising  psychologist  in 
regard  to  the  interests  of  others. 

Every  inducement  would  exist  for  an  attempt  on 
the  part  of  your  fellows  to  give  your  permanent  habits 
a  shape  auspicious  for  them.  For  this  work  they 
would  hardly  be  content  with  the  pressure  of  the  ordi¬ 
nary  atmosphere  of  approval  and  disapproval, — ^if  a 
stronger  pressure  were  available.  They  would  gather 
all  possible  prestige  about  this  notion  of  You  ought.” 
They  would  presumably  call  upon  the  instinct  of  fear, 
heightened  by  such  religious  or  other  imagination  as 
could  be  pressed  into  service,  to  aid  in  the  shaping  of 
the  other  instincts.  There  would  be,  as  there  is,  a 
shade  of  menace  in  the  attitude  with  which  the  ‘ought’ 
bears  down  upon  you.  And  there  would  also  be,  as 
there  is,  a  vigorous  enlistment  of  the  ‘self  regarding 
sentiment’  through  the  general  refusal  to  permit  the 
man  of  refractory  habits  to  think  well  of  himself. 

Everyone  would  thus  acquire  a  high  interest  in 
accepting  the  guidance  of  the  social  ‘ought’;  and  if 
not  everyone,  yet  everyone’s  progeny,  would  end  by 
taking  the  interested  spectator  as  well  as  the  disinter¬ 
ested  spectator  into  his  own  bosom,  seeing  himself 
habitually  through  the  eye  of  the  social  judgment,  and 
assigning  a  certain  authority  to  that  judgment,  to¬ 
gether  with  his  own.  The  moral  Rubicon  is  crossed 
when  once  the  question  is  admitted  as  legitimate, 
“What  sort  am  I?”  And  the  persistent  presence  of 
social  reaction,  with  a  little  generalization,  would  most 
reasonably  be  admitted  to  raise  this  question  in  the 


CONSCIENCE  AND  THE  GENERAL.  WILL  93 

mind  of  each  member,  and  to  keep  it  there,  even  if  it 
succeeded  in  lodging  no  permanent  standards  for 
answering  it. 

Given,  then,  a  being  with  a  social  instinct,  and  under 
the  kind  of  social  pressure  we  have  described,  some 
vocabulary  analogous  to  the  ^ ought’  vocabulary  could 
be  conceived  to  arise  and  something  like  conscience  to 
emerge,  without  appealing  to  any  original  moral 
deposit  in  human  nature.  But  would  this  socially 
moulded  ^conscience’  be  identical  with  conscience  as 
we  know  it?  The  resemblance  is,  in. reality,  superficial. 
It  is  impossible  that  the  ‘ought’  as  we  mean  it  in  its 
current  use  should  be  a  social  product,  as  will  appear 
if  we  consider  how  the  meaning  of  this  word  is  ordi¬ 
narily  conveyed. 

No  doubt  children  listen  with  frequent  perplexity 
to  the  abundant  You-oughts  which  are  offered  them. 
No  doubt  they  have  to  learn  this  word  as  they  learn 
other  words  for  invisible  things :  making  the  assump¬ 
tion  that  some  meaning  it  must  have,  since  the  grown 
world  uses  it;  noting  the  circumstances  in  which  it 
is  employed,  the  accompanying  frowns,  rewards,  and 
other  appeals  and  sanctions;  then  devising  various 
hypotheses  about  its  meaning  until  some  one  seems  to 
fit  the  cases  and  survive.  The  history  of  the  master¬ 
ing  of  this  word  is  not  outwardly  different  from  the 
history  of  the  mastering  of  other  difficult  words :  it  is 
late  in  finding  a  firm  place  in  the  mind.  But  when  it 
arrives,  there  is  a  clear  distinction  in  meaning  between 
“I  ought  to  do  thus  and  so”  and  “It  would  be  prudent 
for  me  because  others  prefer  it.”  This  distinction 


94 


CONSCIENCE 


has  been  called  out  by  something  in  the  attitude  of  the 
person  who  uses  ‘‘You  ought not  noted  in  the  fore¬ 
going  derivation.  The  “You  ought is  neither  a 
commapd,  nor  an  item  of  information  concerning  the 
general  will.  The  reaction  to  one  who  is  supposed  to 
have  violated  the  “You  ought is  not  one  of  simple 
anger;  it  has  an  ingredient  of  regret.  It  addresses 
itself  not  alone  to  his  future  discretion,  but  also  to  his 
past  decision:  it  deplores  the  process  by  which  he 
reached  his  choice.  It  assumes,  rightly  or  not,  that 
he  was  capable  of  a  better  process,  and  that  he  knows 
it.  In  brief,  the  “You  ought addresses  itself  to  an 
answering  ‘  ‘  I  ought  ^  ’  within ;  and  unless  the  ‘  ‘  I  ought  ’ ' 
responds,  it  has  missed  its  target.  This  “I  ought,’’ 
since  it  is  presupposed  in  the  meaning  of  “You  ought,” 
cannot  be  conveyed  from  without  by  means  of  the 
“You  ought.”  It  can  only  find  its  way  into  our  sign- 
language  by  being  taken  as  understood.^  While  we 
ply  our  moral  epithets,  we  wait  anxiously  and  all  but 
helplessly  for  evidence  that  our  meaning  has  struck 
home:  for  we  know  that  every  new  person  must  find 
this  angle  of  vision  for  himself.  The  social  use  of  the 
word  is  thus  never  purely  instructive:  it  is  also,  and 
primarily,  awakening.  It  appeals  to  a  strand  of  self¬ 
judgment  which  is  original  with  every  individual,  and 
in  this  sense  belongs  to  original  human  nature. 

2  In  establishing  a  system  of  signs,  there  are  always  certain  signs 
which  cannot  be  mutually  agreed  upon,  since  in  order  to  agree  upon  any 
sign,  certain  other  signs  must  be  used  as  already  understood.  These 
must  be  thrown  out  as  hopeful  ventures,  and  confirmed  first  by  the  nod 
of  understanding,  then  by  successful  use.  The  sign  for  ‘  ought  ^  is  in 
this  position. 


CHAPTER  XV 


CONSCIENCE  AND  INSTINCT 

IP  the  moral  point  of  view  must  be  achieved  by  each 
mind  for  itself,  may  the  tendency  to  do  this  be 
regarded  as  an  instinct  among  the  other  instincts ! 

It  is  conceivable  that  the  inner  scruple,  finally 
aroused  by  the  moral  batteries  of  our  early  environ¬ 
ment,  is  itself  an  inherited  relic  of  ancestral  expe¬ 
rience  (giving  Spencer  the  benefit  of  the  doubt  about 
the  methods  of  heredity).  According  to  Lippert,  who 
certainly  improves  upon  Spencer’s  psychology,  the 
race  has  acquired  a  group  of  secondary  instincts,” 
acting  as  counterbalances  for  the  more  violent  of  our 
primitive  impulses,  those  of  pugnacity,  sex,  and 
acquisition ;  and  these  comparatively  new  tendencies  to 
respect  and  refrain  are  the  essential  ingredients  of 
conscience.  From  the  Darwinian  standpoint,  it  ap¬ 
pears  reasonable  enough  that  only  men  in  whom  these 
primary  instincts  were  well  mated  and  checked  could 
form  stable  societies,  and  hand  their  natures  down  to 
us.  Conscience  would  then  he  fairly  regarded  as  the 
last  touch  in  the  process  of  balancing  human  instincts. 

Without  doubting  that  certain  specific  inhibitions, 
such  as  shame  or  the  indisposition  to  inflict  bodily 
injury,  may  be  accounted  for  in  this  way,  conscience\ 
itself  is  certainly  not  this  kind  of  instinct.  Our  sense 


96 


CONSCIENCE 


of  ought  does  not  limit  itself  to  any  ancient  categories 
of  behavior.  It  does  not  behave  like  an  echo  of  racial 
experience,  hut  lights  upon  new  types  of  action  as 
keenly  as  upon  old  types :  it  impels  the  return  of  ^  con- 
'  science  moneys  quite  as  clearly  as  it  provokes  remorse 
for  murder.  It  seeks  out  its  own  applications,  and  is 
capable  of  a  development  like  the  sense  of  beauty, 
rising  in  some  persons  to  the  point  of  genius.  Fur¬ 
ther,  it  is  not  attached  unchangeably  to  any  specific 
types  of  behavior  at  all,  whether  new  or  old.  Its 
‘  demands  have  a  more  general  character,  and  descend 
upon  particular  actions  only  through  a  process  of  sub¬ 
suming.  The  grain  of  truth  in  the  wild  assertion  that 
^^the  mores  can  make  anything  right  is  sufficient  to 
discredit  the  view  that  the  moral  sense  consists  of  a 
set  of  acquired  reactions  to  specific  situations. 

If  there  is  anything  innate  in  conscience  it  must 
be  sought  in  whatever  about  it  is  characteristic  of  the 
species,  i.e.  (in  other  words),  unchangeable  and  uni¬ 
versal.  And  if  all  branches  of  the  human  family  have 
a  conscience,  there  is  at  least  so  much  that  is  univer¬ 
sal,  despite  all  variations  in  the  particular  scruples 
it  adopts.^  And  we  should  be  able  to  indicate  certain 

1  If  one  should  answer  the  thoroughgoing  relativist  that  amid  all 
variations  in  the  moral  code  there  was  always  a  moral  code,  the  answer 
might  justly  be  called  empty  and  formal.  But  the  criticism  is  irrele¬ 
vant:  the  answer,  empty  and  formal  as  it  is,  is  sufficient.  To  refute 
absurdities,  one  falls  back  on  formalities.  So  if  it  should  be  said  that 
all  moral  codes  have  at  least  one  common  content,  that  of  approving 
mutual  benefit  above  mutual  injury, — the  statement  would  properly  be 
called  a  banality.  But  the  proper  function  of  a  banal  truth  is  to  meet 
a  banal  error,  such  as  this  that  because  things  vary  there  is  no  constant 
element  in  them. 


/ 


CONSCIENCE  AND  INSTINCT  97 

very  general  traits  of  moral  behavior  which  are  con¬ 
stant  throughout  these  variations.  Thus,  while  cus¬ 
toms  vary  enormously,  conscience  is  generally  inclined 
to  set  a  value  upon  custom.  And  while  totem  gods 
and  other  gods  give  extraordinarily  different  com¬ 
mands,  the  tendency  of  conscience  to  respect  these 
commands  is  always  there.  We  should  come  near  to 
stating  a  universal  trait  of  conscience  if  we  took  what 
is  common  to  both  these  cases, — the  disposition  to  find 
an  object  of  devotion,  and  to  set  this  object  up  as 
authority  in  details  of  conduct,  finding  what  one  ^  ought  ’ 
to  do  not  directly  but  indirectly  through  suggestions 
from  this  source, — be  it  family  head,  totem,  ruler,  god, 
custom,  or  law. 

Thus  conscience  behaves  somewhat  like  a  general 
instinct,  craving  an  object  of  loyalty.  It  finds  these 
objects  through  its  social  context,  and  so  is  a  close  ally 
of  the  social  instinct.  Indeed,  every  associate  is  prob¬ 
ably  to  some  degree  a  moral  authority,  though  the  dis¬ 
position  to  centralize  the  sources  of  suggestion  is 
marked.  But  conscience  is  not  identical  with  socia¬ 
bility.  It  is  not  seeking  neighbors,  but  authorities : 
and  while  it  seems  to  light  on  the  objects  of  its  devo¬ 
tion  often  with  an  unreasoned  tact,  and  adhere  to  them 
with  a  blindness  that  savors  of  the  tropism,  it  does 
not  authoritatively  accept  its  authorities.  It  chooses 
them  with  the  same  originality  as  hunger  shows  in  the 
selection  of  foods;  it  chooses  what  satisfies  itself,  not 
what  satisfies  the  tribe.  It  is  convenient  and  usual 
that  one  can  worship  where  his  tribesmen  worship, 
and  eat  where  and  what  his  tribesmen  eat;  but  the 


98 


CONSCIENCE 


hunger  in  each  case  is  one’s  own.  What  the  authority 
does  is  to  eke  out  the  resources  of  the  spark  of  moral 
originality  in  each  individual,  so  that  it  can  perform 
the  task  of  regulating  a  whole  life-full  of  actions.  In 
custom,  law,  and  religious  precept,  we  find  not  so  much 
other  men’s  consciences  as  the  remainder  of  our  own. 
The  same  motive  that  leads  to  the  adoption  of  author¬ 
ity  may  lead  to  its  rejection,  and  the  setting  up  of 
conscience  versus  custom,  etc.  Thus,  the  authority- 
seeking  trait  is  symptomatic  of  conscience,  and  is  well- 
nigh  universal;  but  it  is  not  conscience  itself. 

The  essential  and  universal  thing  about  conscience, 
in  fact,  seems  to  set  it  apart  from  all  other  innate 
tendencies.  For  conscience  is  the  principal  inner 
agency  for  the  remaking  of  human  nature;  hence  it 
must  stand  as  a  critic  over  against  everything  that  is 
to  be  remade,  and  so  over  against  all  instincts.  It 
plays  the  part  of  censor,  for  the  most  part  permissive, 
and  hence  silent:  but  de  jure  it  is  cognizant  of  every 
act  of  will,  and  of  the  total  policy  of  the  self.  All  that 
belongs  to  the  will,  including  every  form  of  the  will  to 
power,  must  be  bringable  under  its  scrutiny:  it  might 
appear,  then,  that  conscience  is  not  itself  any  part  of 
the  will, — certainly  not  an  instinct, — ^but  something 
outside  of  all  these,  like  self-consciousness  pure  and 
simple.  On  this  showing,  original  human  nature 
would  contain,  beside  all  its  instincts,  something  dif¬ 
ferent  from  instinct,  a  self-consciousness  applying 
certain  standards  of  value  to  the  control  of  behavior. 

But  if  so,  what  is  the  nature  of  these  standards,  and 
what  is  their  source?  Are  they  something  uniquely 


V 


CONSCIENCE  AND  INSTINCT  ,  99 

different  from  the  will  to  power,  and  possibly  opposed 
to  it  now  and  then?  Or  is  the  standard  simply  the 
whole  will  to  power  itself  in  its  most  adequate  and  far¬ 
sighted  interpretation  ? 

My  own  view  is  that  conscience  stands  outside  the 
instinctive  life  of  man,  not  as  something  separate,  but 
as  an  awareness  of  the  success  or  failure  of  that  life 
in  maintaining  its  status  and  its  growth.  It  is  a  safe¬ 
guard  of  the  power  at  any  time  achieved.  It  inter¬ 
poses  a  check  when  an  act  is  proposed  which  threatens 
^  integrity.  ’  What  conscience  recognizes  is  that  cer¬ 
tain  behavior  increases  our  hold  on  reality  while 
certain  other  behavior  diminishes  that  hold,  consti¬ 
tutes  what  the  old  Southern  Buddhist  called  an  asava, 
a  leak.  The  remark  of  conscience  is:  ‘^That  course, 
or  that  act,  promises  to  build,  or  threatens  to  tear 
down,  what  you  metaphysically  are.’’^  Conscience  is 
native  to  human  nature  in  the  sense  that  it  is  within 
the  capacity  of  human  nature  to  he  thus  self-conscious 
in  perceiving  and  controlling  its  own  cosmic  direction. 
It  is  not  an  instinct.  It  is  the  latest  and  finest  instru¬ 
ment  for  the  self-integration  of  instinct.  And  it  is  an 
instrument  characteristically  human. 

If  we  are  right  in  thus  placing  conscience  upon  the 

2  Conscience  can  come  into  existence  only  when  such  an  increase  or 
decrease  of  being  could  itself  become  an  object  of  perception.  One  can 
be  stronger  or  weaker,  fresher  or  w'earier,  without  noticing  the  fact;  if  it 
occurs  to  one  to  remark  on  his  own  condition,  that  is  a  turn  of  expe¬ 
rience  analogous  to  conscience.  In  structure,  it  must  take  a  form  such 
that  some  higher  differential  of  the  whole  nervous  process  at  the  center 
becomes  available  in  regulating  that  process.  See  an  article  by  the 
author  in  The  Psychological  Bulletin,  May  15,  1908,  Theory  of  Value 
and  Conscience  in  their  Biological  Context. 


100 


CONSCIENCE 


growing  edge  of  human  nature,  we  can  understand  the 
importance  which  men  have  assigned  to  its  working. 
While  the  occasional  ciphering  of  many  another  innate 
tendency  passes  without  comment,  the  world  has  made 
a  particular  tradition  of  the  failures  of  conscience, 
and  has  bewailed  them  as  the  essential  failure  of  man. 
Intellectual  blunders  it  adjusts  itself  to  with  compara¬ 
tive  resignation.  Against  moral  errors  it  renews  its 
warfare  from  day  to  day. 

Our  description  of  conscience  so  far  has  been  rather 
to  locate  it  than  to  interpret  it.  Our  conception  is  still 
vague.  Perhaps  we  shall  always  understand  our  moral 
faculty  better  on  its  negative  than  on  its  positive  side. 
For  it  is  in  dealing  with  ‘sin’  that  the  moral  nature 
comes  to  its  most  vigorous  and  definite  expression. 


CHAPTER  XVI 


CURRENT  FALLACIES  REGARDING  SIN 

IF  a  man  is  caught  in  a  lie,  the  discoverer  commonly 
feels  justified  in  calling  him  a  liar.  There  is 
obviously  a  large  logical  distance  between  the  discov¬ 
ered  fact  and  the  appellation.  It  is  something  more 
than  an  inductive  leap  from  the  single  lie  to  a  lying 
habit:  it  is  a  reference  of  the  habit  to  a  flaw  in  the 
moral  substance  of  the  individual.  To  call  a  man  a 
liar  is  to  make  a  metaphysical  assertion. 

If  this  logical  leap  can  be  justified,  it  is  by  aid  of 
the  premiss  that  unless  the  flaw  existed,  the  single  lie 
would  be  impossible.  Character  is  a  disposition  which 
makes  a  person  Gncapable  of^  this  and  that:  it  sets  up 
universal  negatives.  If  a  person  lapses  at  any  time, 
it  is  obvious  that  he  was  ^ capable^  of  that  lapse.  Hence 
he  who  has  ever  stolen  is  a  thief ;  and  one  indiscretion 
is  enough  to  establish  a  woman’s  permanent  status. 

These  fragments  of  moral  logic  are  common  enough 
in  the  form  of  unexamined  attitudes,  sentiments,  pre¬ 
judices.  We  do  not  as  commonly  recognize  them  for 
what  they  are, — forms  of  the  ancient  Oriental  infer¬ 
ence  to  the  effect  that  he  who  has  sinned  is  fallen,  is  a 
sinner.  When  we  inspect  this  argument  in  its  mag¬ 
nificent  sweep,  we  incline  to  shrink  from  it.  Many 
repudiate  it  in  toto;  though  the  repudiation  is  for  tlie 


102 


CONSCIENCE 


most  part  rather  a  hygienic  and  educational  maxim, — 
a  pragmatic  reaction  from  the  morbid  agonies  of  Cal- 
vinistic  tradition, — than  a  theoretical  criticism  of  the 
inference  itself. 

Yet  the  healthier  mind  of  onr  time  would  be  dis¬ 
posed,  I  think,  to  reject  also  the  theory  of  the  argu¬ 
ment,  sin  shows  a  sinner.’^  A  sin  may  show  an 
individual  unduly  strained  or  unduly  depressed.  The 
distribution  of  blame  is  at  least  as  difficult  a  problem 
as  the  distribution  of  wealth.  The  head  of  a  woman’s 
prison  tells  me  that  her  murderesses  are,  as  a  class, 
her  best  citizens.  As  men  grow  wise,  the  judgment 
of  moral  censure  tends  to  be  replaced  by  the  judg¬ 
ment  of  misfit:  if  someone  has  gone  wrong,  it  is  very 
likely  that  he  is  in  the  wrong  place ;  give  him  the  right 
work  and  the  right  neighborhood,  and  going  right 
follows  of  its  own  accord.  Or,  what  we  call  sin  may 
be  an  incident  in  the  normal  process  of  groping  our 
way  into  our  place.  Nobody  can  do  anything  righter, 
we  think,  than  live  out  his  powers,  his  instincts,  con¬ 
duct  strongly  the  great  adventure,  a  soul-building 
process  which  must  lead  through  an  occasional  swamp 
as  well  as  over  mountain  highways.  ^‘Through 
angers,  losses,  ambition,  ignorance,  ennui,  what  you 
are  picks  its  way.”  When  we  think  of  ^‘what  you 
are,”  as  Walt  Whitman  does,  under  the  figure  of  a 
substance,  the  notion  of  sin  reduces  to  that  of  aber¬ 
ration  in  an  orbit,  a  quantitative  matter,  for  the  most 
part  merely  the  extravagance  of  your  virtues.  In¬ 
stead  of  thinking  that  a  sin  shows  a  sinner,  shall  we 


CURRENT  FALLACIES  REGARDING  SIN  103 

not  say  that  a  sin,  taken  by  itself,  shows  nothing  at 
all! 

In  truth,  there  are  signs  of  bewilderment  in  our  cur¬ 
rent  moral  judgments  on  this  point.  We  see  clearly 
that  there  is  something  disproportionately  dark  in 
the  thoughts  of  Augustine  and  his  followers;  we  do 
not  see  clearly  what  to  put  in  their  place.  General 
amnesty  is  hardly  more  successful  than  general  con¬ 
demnation  of  the  race.  Let  me  try  to  get  rid  of  the 
idea  of  guilt,  substituting  for  it  the  idea  of  illness  or 
misfortune.  Let  me  take  into  my  employ  a  man  with 
a  ^record,’  believing  that  society  is  part-responsible 
for  every  crime, — I  find  that  I  feel  far  more  confidence 
for  the  future  if  my  unfortunate  brother  condemns 
himself  than  if  he  chimes  in  too  heartily  with  my  own 
point  of  view.  There  is  a  margin  of  indulgence  in  the 
moral  bookkeeping  of  society,  perhaps  also  of  the 
universe,  and  all  of  us  profit  by  it;  yet  if  anyone  de¬ 
mands  this  indulgence  as  a  right,  he  disqualifies  him¬ 
self.  If  we  think  we  can  omit  the  moral  sermon  and 
substitute  the  hygienic  measure  or  the  change  of 
place,  we  find  the  rebuke  is  still  implied  in  the  need  for 
these  measures:  the  ^ ought’  is  none  the  less  active 
for  not  being  verbally  invoked.  The  sense  of  sin 
seems  to  have  at  least  so  much  pragmatic  force, — it 
does  not  quite  work  to  omit  it,  as  a  prevalent  modern 
attitude  tries  to  do. 

I  presume  that  both  the  Calvinistic  and  this  modern 
attitude  are  wrong,  and  for  similar  reasons :  one 
assumes  that  wrong  cancels  merit,  the  other  that  merit 
cancels  wrong,  like  the  positive  and  negative  numbers 


104 


CONSCIENCE 


of  algebra.  This,  I  venture  to  think,  is  a  fundamental 
fallacy.  It  is  much  as  if  we  should  balance  off  the 
black  of  one  part  of  a  picture  against  the  white  of 
another  part  and  declare  the  whole  a  muddy  gray. 
Nothing  is  more  natural  than  to  feel  one  is  making  up 
for  a  wrong  by  good  offices  of  some  sort,  or  than  a 
misstep  is  destroying  a  good  record ;  but  the  result  of 
such  a  balancing  process  is  that  our  moral  self-con¬ 
sciousness  tends  to  become  nondescript.  We  tend  to 
revert  to  the  simpler  state  of  mind  in  which  we  have 
no  more  moral  qualities,  but  simply  are.  There  is 
relief  in  this  reversion,  but  as  an  abandonment  of  a 
theoretical  difficulty  it  is  not  a  place  to  remain  in. 
The  difficulty  has  a  solution. 

The  solution  lies,  I  believe,  in  a  simple  distinction 
between  the  logic  of  physical  things  and  the  logic  of 
consciousness.  It  is  characteristic  of  physical  nature 
that  algebraic  opposites  neutralize  one  another:  acid 
and  base  combine  in  a  neutral  salt.  It  is  equally  char¬ 
acteristic  of  consciousness  to  retain  both  components 
without  neutralization:  it  is  this  which  gives  con¬ 
sciousness  its  Mepth.’  Thus,  in  the  physical  world, 
all  that  is  real  is  present:  the  past  exists  only  in  the 
form  of  present  traces,  records,  ruins,  hereditary  dis¬ 
positions,  brain  paths,  momenta, — so  many  present 
facts.  The  geological  past  is  typical,  existing  in  the 
order  and  shape  of  contemporary  rocks  and  scratches. 
But  in  consciousness  the  past  retains  its  character  as 
past:  the  glacial  moraine  calls  up  to  it  something 
which  no  longer  exists  in  nature;  and  the  depth  of 
memory,  the  journey  of  thought  as  it  reads  its  own 


CURRENT  FALLACIES  REGARDING  SIN  105 

strata, — the  journey  from  the  present  to  the  begin¬ 
ning  and  back  again,  is  one  of  the  dimensions  of  a 
mind.  For  physical  purposes,  two  equal  and  opposite 
forces  produce  a  resultant  zero.  For  consciousness, 
two  equal  and  opposite  efforts  remain  two  and  oppo¬ 
site  :  in  the  state  of  deadlock  or  equipoise,  the  elements 
do  not  lose  their  identity.  In  consciousness  there  is 
many  an  a  minus  a,  but  never  a  zero  nor  a  neutral. 

This  principle  holds  good  for  the  moral  sense. 
When  we  fall  into  the  dull  optimism  which  ventures 
to  hope  that  after  all  deductions  there  will  still  be  a 
moral  balance  in  our  favor,  we  are  transferring  a 
physical  calculus  which  our  fresher  judgments  know 
nothing  of.  When  a  fresh  wrong  has  to  be  dealt  with, 
it  is  no  one^s  first  impulse  to  check  it  off  against  all 
previous  right-going:  it  stands  by  itself  whole  and 
intact, — the  right-going  falls  into  irrelevance,  for  after 
all  why  should  one  not  go  right?  And  when  there  is  a 
deed  that  calls  for  honor  or  thanks,  where  is  the  shabby 
calculator  who  brings  to  mind  the  offsetting  failures 
or  mistakes?  On  such  a  day,  the  critic  fearing  to  be 
disloyal  to  his  criticism  is  likely  to  join  half-heartedly 
in  the  praise;  unless  he  is  set  free  by  perceiving  the 
fallacy  of  the  process  of  balance.  The  deed  of  the  hero 
is  not  dimmed  by  his  crimes ;  nor  are  his  crimes  wiped 
out  by  his  heroism.  Consciousness  is  not  a  cancelling 
ground:  it  is  the  region  in  which  opposites  are  pre¬ 
served.  Character,  that  mysterious  entity  which  we 
surmise  through  single  deeds,  is  much  more  versatile 
than  the  psychology  of  either  Calvin  or  Augustine  or 
Pelagius  allows,  ^capable  of^  harboring  many  an  un- 


106 


CONSCIENCE 


solved  antithesis.  But  a  corollary  of  this  truth  is,  that 
with  all  our  good  will  to  stand  up  for  ourselves  as  men 
in  presence  of  the  Adamic  title  of  ‘  sinner,  ’  that  epithet 
and  its  logic  remain  as  something  to  be  reckoned  with. 

But  our  disinclination  to  hear  much  of  sin  has  other 
roots  than  the  fallacy  of  cancellation.  It  is  due  in  part 
to  the  fallacy  of  custom;  by  which  I  mean  that  the 
usualness  of  a  given  type  of  wrong-doing  diminishes 
the  psychological  sense  of  its  wrongfulness,  and  with 
our  increasing  knowledge  of  evil,  all  types  of  wrong¬ 
doing  appear  usual.  Our  knowledge  of  evil  today  is 
no  longer  the  knowledge  of  personal  experience  and 
hearsay;  it  is  the  knowledge  of  social  and  statistical 
science.  It  is  a  knowledge  spread  broadcast  by  jour¬ 
nalism,  by  a  literature  of  disillusionment,  and  even  by 
the  necessities  of  a  popular  government  which  makes 
every  man  responsible  for  knowing  how  the  other  half 
lives.  And  in  dealing  with  sin  through  all  our  insti¬ 
tutions  we  accept  a  sort  of  complicity  in  all  that  we 
know.  The  work  of  the  jury  is  not  simply  to  discern 
the  external  fact  regarding  the  behavior  of  the 
accused  :  the  jury  are  chosen  as  his  peers,  that  is  as 
those  who  can  perceive  the  fact,  because  they  under¬ 
stand  his  will,  being  of  like  circumstances  and  like 
mind  with  him.  In  truth,  the  villains  of  the  world  are 
a  shade  more  comprehensible  to  us  than  its  saints. 
The  latter,  if  we  are  cynical,  we  reduce  to  villains  in 
disguise  in  order  to  understand  them.  If  we  accept 
them  as  genuine,  we  account  them  somewhat  more  than 
human  and  endow  them  with  a  halo  of  supernature. 


CUBKENT  FALLACIES  KEGARDING  SIN  107 

The  real  villain  is  remarkable  chiefly  for  the  absence 
of  that  nimbus  of  mystery  which  still  enwraps  the 
common  man.  He  is  one  who  has  yielded  to  the  obvious 
reason,  the  universal  drag  toward  overt  advantage, 
the  material  day  of  unmodified  instinct.  Evil  is  the 
thing  we  understand,  through  an  unhindered  partici¬ 
pation  in  its  motive. 

But  on  the  other  hand,  by  a  principle  of  human 
psychology,  the  very  extent  of  our  knowledge  of  moral 
evil  tends  to  rob  of  tragedy  the  statement  that  ‘  ‘  all 
men  are  sinners.’^  The  sense  of  sin,  which  is  at  home 
in  the  solitude  of  individual  conscience,  can  hardly 
survive  in  the  universalizing  atmosphere.  There  is  no 
better  balm  for  the  conscience  of  the  nouveau  mau- 
vais  than  the  assurance  that  ‘‘everybody  does  it.^^  Or 
if  this  cannot  be  said,  then  the  more  general,  “We  all 
make  our  mistakes,’^  or  “To  err  is  human, may  be 
used.  It  is  a  general  principle  of  values  that  what¬ 
ever  introduces  a  wider  horizon  into  an  experience, 
such  as  conceiving  it  as  the  common  lot,  sweetens  it 
and  enhances  its  worth.  It  is  for  this  reason,  in  part, 
that  the  mores  have  been  able  to  do  so  much  toward 
making  the  uncouth  (an  ancient)  good.  But  beside 
this,  every  man,  as  we  were  saying,  is  something  of 
a  moral  authority  to  every  other;  and  whatever  one 
can  do  in  company,  or  in  a  mob,  is  partly  removed 
from  the  sphere  of  private  judgment.  The  principle. 
Judge  not  others  that  ye  he  not  yourself  judged,  is 
inverted  in  its  application :  in  order  not  to  judge  others, 
we  refrain  from  judging  ourselves. 

This  checkage  of  moral  judgment  in  dealing  with 


108 


CONSCIENCE 


common  errors  has  many  expressions.  The  touch  of 
nature  which  is  said  to  make  the  whole  world  kin  fre¬ 
quently  takes  the  form  of  confessing  a  common  weak¬ 
ness.  Does  it  not  add  somewhat  to  ordinary  social 
negotiability  to  live  genially  with  the  minor  vices? — 
I  am  speaking  of  psychological  tendencies.  Men 
incline  to  meet  and  enjoy  each  other  ‘at  the  sign^  of 
their  mutually  admitted  indulgences.  The  gaiety,  the 
humor,  the  color,  to  some  extent  the  art  of  the  world — 
not  to  speak  of  the  world ^s  fighting  and  the  world’s 
work — seem  to  thrive  best  in  an  atmosphere  made  free 
by  mutual  agreement  that  the  censor  shall  be,  to  some 
extent,  suspended. 

This  is  by  no  means  pure  moral  blindness.  There 
is  soundness  in  the  common  judgment  before  which 
the  pharisee  has  always  come  off  less  well  than  the 
publican.  The  righteousness  which  has  to  be  achieved 
by  insulating  one’s  sympathies  is  justly  suspected  of 
abstraction  and  so  far  of  unrighteousness.  In  the 
effort  after  virtue  there  is  a  genuine  paradox:  to  be. 
duly  strenuous  in  the  pursuit,  and  to  retain  perfect 
charity  for  the  unstrenuous  are  attitudes  difficult  to 
combine.  By  general  consent  mankind  seems  to  pre¬ 
fer  the  kindly  soul — if  mankind  must  choose — to  the 
more  consistent  moral  aristocrat.  In  Bohemia,  the 
humane  breadth  of  common  weakness,  its  liberating 
and  inspiriting  fraternity,  appear  to  deprive  sin  of  its 
sinful  quality. 

It  is  worth  pointing  out,  therefore,  that  there  is  a 
fallacy  here  also,  a  fallacy  which  can  be  read  plainly 
enough  in  the  facts  of  our  own  experience.  For 


CURKENT  FALLACIES  REGARDING  SIN  109 

% 

Bohemia  finds  itself,  after  all,  no  universal  brother¬ 
hood,  but  a  region  distinctly  localized  in  our  minds: 
we  know  by  instinct  the  place  for  this  abstract  gaiety 
of  forgetfulness  and  irresponsibility.  It  is  in  the 
world  of  art,  of  letters,  of  fairly  distant  history, — in 
brief,  it  is  in  the  world  of  imagination  (for  remote  his¬ 
tory  takes  on  imaginative  quality),  that  Falstaff, 
Aspasia,  The  Jolly  Friars,  Lucretia  Borgia,  Tam 
O’Shanter,  Don  Juan,  and  all  the  other  heroes  and 
heroines  of  the  morally  unstrenuous  life  have  their 
rightful  sphere.  They  are  the  glorified  fringes  of  our 
too  sharp-cut  and  self-righteous  ideals.  Their  human 
value  lies  in  the  respiration  they  afford  to  repressed 
possibilities  within  us,  their  conspiracy  with  our  own 
genius  and  invention,  not  in  the  actual  frailty  or  vice 
which  they  embody.  If  we  enjoy  them  with  a  bad 
conscience,  it  is  because  we  cannot  accept  them  in  this 
role ;  we  fear  that  this  function  of  imaginative  release 
will  be  mistaken  (by  others!);  we  fear  the  subcon¬ 
scious  inference  from  the  proposition.  To  err  is  human 
(which  is  true),  to  the  proposition.  Error  is  not  error 
(which  is  false).  This  is  the  essence  of  the  fallacy. 

But  there  is  a  third  fallacy  which  lends  support  to 
the  others,  and  is,  perhaps,  their  more  philosophical 
expression.  It  may  be  stated  thus:  Whatever  is  nat¬ 
ural  is  right ;  Whatever  is  impulsive  is  natural ;  hence. 
Whatever  is  impulsive  is  right.  The  common  misdeeds 
of  humanity,  springing  as  they  do  from  impulse,  are  to 
be  dealt  with  not  as  moral  wrongs,  but  as  effects  of 
natural  causes :  if  the  effects  are  unwelcome,  they  are 


110 


CONSCIENCE 


to  be  changed  by  changing  the  causes.  As  nobody  can 
do  anything  that  cannot  with  equal  reason  be  referred 
to  nature,  this  reasoning  would  at  a  stroke  abolish  the 
category  of  sin.  If  this  category  is  to  hold  its  own, 
we  must  be  able  to  state  what  sin  means,  in  terms  of 
human  instincts. 


CHAPTER  XVII 


INSTINCT  AND  SIN 

The  early  manifestations  of  instinct  are  crude 
enough;  but  crudity  and  sin  are  not  identical. 
Many  of  the  early  assertions  of  natural  impulse  in 
children  are  inconvenient  to  ourselves;  but  they  are 
not  on  this  account  anti-social.  Some  innate  disposi¬ 
tions  we  may  justly  call  dangerous ;  but  this  does  not 
make  them  wrong.  There  is  nothing  in  original  human 
nature  which  taken  by  itself  can  be  called  evil. 

This  principle  may  be  understood  to  mean  that  any 
instinct  is  justified  by  virtue  of  its  existence.  Stanley 
Hall  and  others,  on  this  ground,  are  willing  to  recog¬ 
nize  such  tendencies  as  lying,  stealing,  cruelty,  greed, 
and  malice  as  right  in  their  place.  In  the  main  they 
hold  it  advisable  that  these  impulses  should  come  to 
their  natural  expression,  wearing  themselves  through 
on  a  principle  resembling  the  Aristotelian  katharsis, 
and  paving  the  way  for  the  more  congenial  impulses 
that  normally  follow  them.  One  is  reminded  of  the 
Sahbasava  Sutta,  in  which  it  is  held  that  some  of  the 
asavas,  or  native  weaknesses  of  character,  should  he 
overcome  by  due  indulgence.  In  view  of  these  same 
tendencies,  however.  Professor  E.  L.  Thorndike  feels 
bound  to  hold  that  original  nature  is  very  often  and 


112 


CONSCIENCE 


very  much  imperfect  and  wrong.  And  had  we  the 
same  view  of  human  nature  as  that  adopted  by  these 
observers,  we  should  be  driven  to  Thorndike  ^s  conclu¬ 
sion  rather  than  to  that  of  Stanley  Hall.  But  we  can¬ 
not  agree  that  these  particular  impulses  are  natural, 
however  characteristic  they  may  be  of  childhood.  It 
begs  the  entire  question  to  ascribe  to  human  nature 
impulses  to  cheat,  to  steal,  to  bully,  to  torture,  etc. : 
the  names  chosen  carry  with  them  the  ethical  reproach. 
An  impulse,  taken  by  itself,  is  a  promise  of  satisfac¬ 
tion,  and  so  far,  of  good.  We  have  a  natural  impulse 
to  climb ;  and  if  we  climb  trees  we  may  find  other  nat¬ 
ural  impulses  to  take  what  is  growing  there.  But 
this  taking  is  not  in  itself  ‘stealing’:  it  becomes  steal¬ 
ing  only  in  relation  to  a  social  environment  not 
involved  in  the  first  intention  of  the  act.  There  is  no 
natural  impulse  to  steal. 

The  same  is  true  of  supposed  tendencies  to  deceive. 
Children  have  dramatic  impulses  which  may  acquire 
the  character  of  deception  by  the  entrance  from  with¬ 
out  of  a  demand  for  facts.  The  moral  quality  lies  not 
in  the  impulse  but  in  its  relation  to  this  demand.  So 
hunger  may  acquire  the  character  of  selfishness  and 
greed,  by  the  arrival  of  other  claimants.  It  is  not  so 
obvious  in  the  case  of  primitive  fighting  and  sex  im¬ 
pulses,  in  which  other  human  beings  are  normally  con¬ 
cerned,  that  the  moral  qualification  can  be  denied ;  and 
doubtless  it  is  these  impulses  that  have  had  to  bear 

1  The  Original  Nature  of  Man,  p.  280.  He  thinks  the  view  that 
original  nature  is  essentially  wrong  and  untrustworthy  to  be  ‘  ‘  probably 
as  fair”  as  the  view  that  original  nature  is  always  right. 


INSTINCT  AND  SIN  113 

the  brunt  of  the  traditional  condemnation  of  human 
nature.  Yet  here,  too,  we  have  to  take  the  ground 
of  the  primitive  impulses  themselves.  And  primitive 
anger  and  love,  if  they  make  any  excursion  into  the 
minds  of  their  objects,  picture  these  objects  to  them¬ 
selves  as  pure  enemy  or  pure  lover,  and  in  this  light 
there  is  nothing  in  them  to  'condemn.^ 

Crude  impulses  must  be  described  by  non-invidious 
names.  Further,  we  may  notice  that  the  apparent 
moral  defect  lies  not  in  the  impulse  itself,  but  in  the 
manner  in  which  it  reaches  satisfaction.  With  an 
impulse  are  organized  (to  compose  the  instinct)  cer¬ 
tain  methods  of  procedure,  not  inseparably  nor  exclu¬ 
sively,  but  as  the  directest  ways  to  the  goal — the  ^  ^  nat¬ 
ural  ways,’^  we  may  call  them.  Thus,  it  is  more 
natural,  at  least  for  Anglo-Saxon  boys,  to  fight  with 
fists  and  according  to  the  principle  ‘^alFs  fair,’’  than 
to  fight  with  swords  or  arguments  and  according  to 
rule  and  order.  The  ways  which  represent  much 
social  modification  and  technique  are  called  ^‘better”: 
the  natural  way  is  less  adapted  to  the  latest  marches 
of  society.  If  we  have  an  instinct  to  hunt  and  kill,  it 
certainly  knows  nothing  of  hook  or  gun:  something 

2  A  wise  critic  puts  to  me  this  question:  “Are  not  these  forms  of 
the  will  to  power?  Will  not  the  self  in  its  early  stage,  after  finding 
that  he  can  subject  the  inanimate  world  to  himself,  attempt  also  to 
assert  his  will  on  the  living,  as,  e.g.,  in  deception,  stealth,  pugnacity, 
cruelty?  Is  there  not  a  natural  antagonism  and  does  not  morality 
rightly  arise  through  incipient  immorality?’’  My  answer  would  be  that 
self-assertion  is  indeed  a  form  of  the  will  to  power,  and  when  tried 
upon  fellow  beings  is  frequently  incipient  immorality.  But  if  it  becomes, 
let  us  say,  actual  ‘cruelty,’  it  is  because  it  goes  beyond  pure  self- 
assertion  and  begins  to  be  aware  of  a  conscious  and  suffering  environ¬ 
ment. 


114 


CONSCIENCE 


much  more  like  Tolstoy’s  picture  of  the  boar  hunt,  or 
Fielding’s  picture  of  the  Malayan  sacrifice  comes  to 
mind.  In  so  far  as  the  natural  ways  are  unfitted  to 
contemporary  social  needs  or  sensitivities,  or  to  their 
own  conscious  environment,  they  are  objectively  evil. 
But  it  is  only  as  such  unfitness  enters  the  mental  hori¬ 
zon  of  the  agent  that  a  moral  evil  can  be  alleged.^ 

Admitting,  then,  that  no  crude  impulse  is  sinful 
taken  by  itself,  it  does  not  in  the  least  follow  that  crude 
impulses  as  we  find  them  in  human  nature  are  there¬ 
fore  good.  It  does  not  so  much  as  follow  (as  is  often 
stated)  that  they  are  devoid  of  moral  quality.  For 
as  we  find  them  in  human  nature,  no  impulse  is  by 
itself.  The  moral  quality  of  any  impulse  is  due  some¬ 
how  to  its.  mental  environment  not  to  its  own  intrinsic 
quality;  but  every  impulse  (after  the  hypothetical 
first)  has  an  environment.  It  is  particularly  true  of 
the  instincts  of  pugnacity  and  sex-love,  about  whose 
natural  rightness  much  is  said  and  with  weighty  con¬ 
clusions,  that  the  environment  into  which  their  full 
strength  emerges  is  elaborate  and  compact.  It  is, 
therefore,  thoroughly  fallacious  to  argue  that  because 
these  impulses  taken  by  themselves  are  justified 
by  their  existence,  these  same  impulses  taken  to- 

s  I  do  not  say  that  the  perception  of  such  unfitness  is  sufficient  to 
constitute  a  moral  quality;  I  say  only  that  it  is  necessary.  To  give  an 
act  a  moral  character,  it  is  further  necessary  that  the  person  having 
the  impulse  should  recognize  an  ohligation  to  achieve  what  is  fit  rather 
than  what  is  unfit,  should  perceive  himself  as  qualified  by  his  own  act, — 
subject,  that  is,  to  approval  or  reproach, — and  should  know,  too,  that 
he  is  ahle  to  refrain  from  following  his  impulse  in  view  of  his  obliga¬ 
tion.  These  elements  may  all  be  present,  of  course,  without  any  power 
of  analysis  on  the  part  of  the  moral  subject. 


INSTINCT  AND  SIN 


115  ^ 


gether  with  the  rest  of  a  human  mind  are  equally  jus¬ 
tified  in  their  original  crudity.  Nothing  can  he  con¬ 
demned  because  it  is  crude ;  but  a  moral  question  may 
arise  at  once  if  an  impulse  has  an  opportunity  to  he 
something  else  than  crude.  Sin  lies,  we  judge,  in  the 
relation  of  an  impulse  to  its  mental  environment. 
What  in  particular  is  this  relation? 

In  our  analysis  of  human  nature,  we  recognized  two 
strata,  that  of  the  central  instincts,  and  that  of  the 
more  specific  instincts  and  units  of  behavior.  These 
central  instincts,  we  thought,  no  matter  how  various 
their  names,  were  in  reality  forms  of  a  single  tendency, 
which  we  roughly  described  as  the  will  to  power.  As 
for  the  other,  more  specific  instincts,  it  appeared  to 
us  that  while  each  one  had  its  own  particular  goal  and 
its  way  thereto,  none  could  he  wholly  independent  of 
this  central  current  of  the  will.  Because  every  impulse 
of  a  given  mind  belongs  to  that  mind,  it  must  at  least 
appear  consistent  with  its  central  purpose ;  more  than 
this,  it  must  more  or  less  fully  satisfy  that  central 
purpose  within  its  special  field.  It  is  here  that  the 
moral  issue  arises.  For  any  given  impulse  may  reject 
the  responsibility  to  carry  any  further  meaning  than 
that  of  its  own  direct  goal.  I  may  say.  Hunger  is 
hunger,  it  means  bread,  and  nothing  more  fanciful ;  or 
Fear  is  fear  and  its  whole  significance  is  that  I  make 
good  my  immediate  escape,  without  responsibility  to 
any  other  instincts,  social  or  what  not;  or  Desire  is 
desire,  and  if  any  vague  sense  of  my  total  destiny 
attempts  to  impose  a  further  interpretation,  so  much 
the  worse  for  the  vague  sense  and  its  pretended  claims. 


116  CONSCIENCE 

The  moral  issue  arises  from  this  conflict :  not  the  con¬ 
flict  between  one  person  and  another,  nor  the  conflict 
between  one  impulse  and  another  in  a  given  mind ;  but 
the  conflict  between  a  given  impulse  and  the  central 
will,  or  between  the  separate  and  restricted  meaning 
of  an  impulse,  and  the  wider  meaning  which  because 
of  its  human  belonging  it  ought’’  to  carry.  Sin,  I 
believe,  is  the  refusal  to  interpret  crude  impulse  in 
terms  of  the  individuaVs  most  intelligent  will  to 
power. 

The  responsibility  of  the  particular  impulse  to  the 
central  will  is,  in  fact,  twofold.  It  has  not  simply  to 
be  subordinate  to  the  central  will  and  express  it;  it 
has  also  to  aid  in  creating,  or  giving  substance  to,  that 
central  will.  For  as  we  saw,  the  self  acquires  vigor 
and  definiteness  of  policy  only  by  degrees ;  all  instinc¬ 
tive  experience  must  be  laid  under  contribution  to 
give  solidity  and  consistency  to  the  central  trend.  The 
mind  is  at  first  a  very  feeble  and  general  unity,  aim¬ 
ing  to  become  more  concrete.  Its  numerous  impulses 
and  hungers,  as  nature  wakes  them,  establish  for  it  a 
lax  routine,  but  no  coherent  purpose.  Ask  a  young 
child  what  its  plans  are  for  the  day,  the  week,  the 
future;  sufficient  unto  the  hour,  for  the  child,  is  the 
pain  or  pleasure  thereof.  Indeed  a  unified  policy  is 
never  completely  achieved:  there  is  always  a  certain 
desultoriness  or  unrelatedness  in  our  many  doings — 
life  is  ^  ^  first  one  thing  and  then  another  ’  ’ ;  each  of  us 
knows  only  more  or  less  what  in  the  concrete  he  most 
deeply  wants.  But  just  because  of  this  more  or  less, 
and  because  in  administering  our  impulses  we  can  con- 


INSTINCT  AND  SIN 


117 


t 


trol  the  more  or  less,  human  existence  takes  on  moral 
character.  Sin,  we  may  say,  is  the  deliberate  failure  to 
interpret  an  impulse  so  that  it  will  confirm  or  increase 
the  integration  of  selfhood. 

Consider,  for  example,  an  impulse  of  anger.  There 
is  another  will  which  opposes  my  own;  and  the  nat¬ 
ural  way^^  of  my  impulse  is  to  break  down  this  oppo¬ 
sition  by  main  force,  destroying  the  opposing  will  if 
necessary.  The  will  to  power  might  seem  to  be  in  full 
possession ;  and  to  some  extent  it  is  in  possession — hut 
not,  for  the  human  intellect,  in  full  possession.  For 
power  is  lost,  generally  speaking,  when  an  opposing 
mind  is  treated  according  to  the  ‘‘natural  way’’  as  a 
physical  obstacle,  or  “thing.”  If  that  opposing  mind 
survives  as  a  mind,  it  exists  (as  a  physical  obstacle 
does  not)  as  a  force  against  the  hostile  self,  and  so  far 
as  a  subtraction  from  its  power.  If  it  does  not  survive 
as  a  mind,  there  is  so  much  less  for  the  will  to  power 
to  rule  over:  this  will,  in  human  form,  has  robbed 
itself  of  its  normal  domain.  If,  then,  I  allow  my 
impulse  to  assume  its  primitive  and  separate  meaning 
of  destruction,  I  give  it  an  interpretation  inconsistent, 
in  general,  with  as  much  of  my  will  to  power  as  I  am 
capable  of  grasping.  I  sin.  And  I  am  aware  of  the 
fact,  however  vaguely: — this  is  my  conscience. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 


SIN  AS  BLINDNESS  AND  UNTRUTH 

IN  a  sinful  act,  we  were  saying,  one  is  aware  of  his 
own  deficiency  of  interpretation.  If  he  were  not 
thus  aware,  his  act,  though  objectively  wrong,  would 
not  be  sinful.  Yet  this  awareness  is  kept  obscure  by 
'  the  strategy  of  the  sinful  consciousness  itself :  for  pur- 
poses  of  protective  coloration,  it  endeavors  to  sup¬ 
press  the  unwelcome  knowledge. 

In  any  full-fiedged  passion,  as  of  wrath,  we  can  read¬ 
ily  detect  this  trait  of  wilful  blindness.  It  is  char¬ 
acteristic  of  passion  to  exclude  a  part  of  the  mental 
horizon.  There  is  immense  satisfaction  in  radical 
thought  and  radical  action :  by  eliminating  scruples  or 
further  considerations,  our  mental  state  gains  at  once 
that  simplicity  and  unity  in  which  we  have  a  ^^neces¬ 
sary  interest,’’  for  they  ensure  that  added  intensity 
in  the  process  of  living  which  is  the  object  of  the  life 
elan  itself.  The  impeding  call  for  the  additional 
meaning  is  at  a  disadvantage,  because  it  appears  as 
hostile  to  more  abundant  life ;  yet  as  it  is  the  achieved 
will  to  power  that  is  attempting  to  assert  itself,  it 
cannot  be  banished :  it  can  only  be  thrown  into  the 
margin.^  Sin,  in  fact,  deals  in  margins.  It  involves, 

1  One  recommendation  of  this  account  of  moral  consciousness  over 
that  of  McDougall,  for  example,  may  be  that  the  problem  how  the 
naturally  weaker  motive  acquires  such  strength  as  often  to  overcome  the 


SIN  AS  BLINDNESS  AND  UNTEUTH  119 

as  has  often  been  pointed  ont,  an  obscuration  of  knowl¬ 
edge  ;  but  wbat  it  rejects  is  only  the  ditference  between 
one  thought  system  and  another  slightly  more  com¬ 
plete.  Passion  is  always  highly  intellectual  and  alert. 
The  most  primitive  exhibition  of  pugnacity  is  full  of 
such  concepts  as — ‘^On  this  issue  (simple  or  com¬ 
plex) — you  (with  your  view  of  it) — shall  submit — shall 
regret — your  obstinacy — shall  go  down — before  this, 
my  attack — longer  parley  intolerable,  stultifying — 
all  evasion  shall  he  swept  away.  ’  ’  It  is  simply  that  the 
marriage  between  the  given  course  of  behavior  and  its 
appropriate  thought-system  is  so  close  that  a  read¬ 
justment  in  favor  of  a  more  complete,  and  probably 
less  definite,  thought-system  is  rendered  difficult. 

We  see  that  sin  cannot  be  defined,  except  very  rela¬ 
tively,  as  a  preference  of  pleasure  to  reason :  there  are 
pleasure  and  reason  on  each  side.  There  is  on  each 
side  a  satisfaction  of  the  will  to  live — we  have  seen 
that  passion  presents  itself  as  a  more  abundant  life 
than  its  opposite;  and  on  each  side  a  satisfaction  of 
the  will  to  power,  which  all  human  actions  must  in 
some  degree  express.  There  is,  in  fact,  no  descriptive 
difference  between  the  act  which  is  sinful  and  the  act 
which  is  not  sinful :  sin  has  all  the  psychological  ingre¬ 
dients  of  virtue,  and  virtue  all  the  ingredients  of  sin — 
even  to  the  mental  concentration,  the  limiting  of  mar¬ 
ginal  thought.  It  is  only  the  wholly  individual  situa¬ 
tion,  the  reference  of  a  given  impulse  to  an  available 

naturally  stronger  motive  loses  much  of  its  point.  There  is  no  need  to 
appeal  to  the  growing  strength  of  a  self-regarding  sentiment.  For  the 
central  will  has  as  much  of  the  strength  of  all  the  instincts  as  at  any 
time  the  self  has  succeeded  in  lending  it  by  its  efforts  of  interpretation. 


120 


CONSCIENCE 


charge  of  interpretative  thought,  that  furnishes  the 
criterion. 

An  assertion  of  the  individual  character  of  sin 
usually  excites  the  question  how  it  is  then  that  social 
organization,  with  its  common  laws  and  statutes,  de¬ 
scribing  murder,  theft,  adultery,  disorderly  conduct 
by  definite  and  chiefly  external  meanSj  is  possible, — a 
question  which  we  have  later  to  consider, — but  the 
principle  of  the  answer  seems  to  be  this:  There  are 
certain  kinds  of  objective  behavior  which  are  so  far 
below  the  level  of  average  human  interpretative  power 
that  we  can  assume  with  all  but  complete  certainty 
that  the  objective  wrong  implies  a  subjective  wrong. 
And  for  social  purposes  we  must  assume  this,  allow¬ 
ing  under  liberal  regimes  that  strong  evidence  might 
still  convince  us  of  the  contrary.  It  is,  in  fact,  far 
safer  to  assume  that  an  externally  anti-social  behavior 
is  internally  sinful  than  that  an  externally  correct 
behavior  is  internally  virtuous.  But  neither  assump¬ 
tion  is  entirely  safe ;  and  in  our  own  discussion  we  are 
speaking  of  principles,  not  of  proportions.  In  all 
strictness,  no  behavior  can  be  defined  as  sinful  by  its 
descriptive  characters  alone. 

But  we  can  perhaps  find  a  still  more  complete  ex¬ 
pression  of  the  nature  of  sin  by  considering  a  further 
development  of  the  meaning’’  which  an  act  may 
carry. 

Every  day  a  great  volume  of  money  changes  hands 
without  a  word,  the  meaning  of  the  transaction  being’ 
established  by  some  understanding  in  the  background. 
The  understanding  may  be  an  agreement  for  work  and 


SIN  AS  BLINDNESS  AND  UNTKUTH  121 

wages;  then  if,  at  the  week^s  end,  A  pays  money  to  B, 
the  acts  of  A  in  giving  and  of  B  in  receiving  hear  a 
definite  meaning  which  could  be  expressed  in  the  form 
of  an  assertion.  B^s  act  of  receiving  means,  ‘‘I  have 
done  the  work  agreed  upon,  and  am  entitled  to  this 
return^ A^s  act  means,  believe  that  you  have  done 
your  work,  and  this  is  your  earning.’^  If  B  has  not 
done  his  work,  his  act  still  conveys  the  same  meaning; 
but  this  time,  it  is  a  false  meaning.  His  act  is  equiva¬ 
lent  to  an  untruth.  The  wrong  does  not  lie  primarily 
in  the  untruth;  but  the  untruth  points  out  the  wrong. 

Suppose  now  that  we  have  arrived  at  an  understand¬ 
ing  about  the  conditions  which  justify  a  decision  in 
general,  namely  that  I  shall  only  then  decide  and  act 
when  I  have  fairly  interpreted  my  impulses.  In  this 
case,  any  decision  or  act  of  mine  would  have  this  fur¬ 
ther  meaning:  that  I  have  done  my  interpreting,  and 
am  justified  in  releasing  the  act,  in  saying  ^‘Now’^  to 
my  impulse.  And  as  my  actions  aim  at  some  satisfac¬ 
tion,  whether  in  the  acting  or  in  the  end  reached,  it 
follows  that  my  pleasures  themselves  acquire  a  mean¬ 
ing,  because  of  the  general  understanding.  Pleasure, 
to  the  moral  self,  ceases  to  be  mere  pleasure :  it  means 
a  justified  mastery ;  it  means  that  so  far  as  I  know  my 
own  will,  it  is  now  being  realized;  it  means  that  the 
material  of  experience  is  becoming  subject  to  my 
ideas  and  purposes.  If  I  have  accepted  this  under¬ 
standing,  and  take  a  pleasure  without  complying  with 
the  conditions,  without  doing  my  thinking  and  inter¬ 
preting,  then  that  taking  of  pleasure  means  a  false¬ 
hood.  I  sit  down  to  meat,  and  my  eating  does  no  more 


122 


CONSCIENCE 


than  satisfy  my  appetite,  when  by  the  grace  of  God  I 
profess  that  it  concerns  my  widest  plans  and  purposes 
also :  in  this  case  my  eating  becomes  a  lie  in  action. 
Always  assuming  the  understanding,  we  can  agree  so 
far  with  Wollaston — a  keen  but  little-noticed  thinker — 
that  all  sin  has  the  character  of  untruth,  because  of 
the  unspoken  assertions  or  meanings  of  our  acts. 
Wollaston  had  in  mind  the  meanings  which  acts  carry 
by  virtue  of  social  understandings  and  conventions. 
Thus  if  I  beat  my  wife,  or  betray  my  friend,  I  treat 
them  as  if  they  were  not  wife,  or  friend :  my  acts  con¬ 
vey  untruth.  For  us,  however,  the  untruth  lies  far¬ 
ther  back  than  the  social  usage  in  treating  wives  or 
friends :  it  is  found  in  the  general  recognition  by 
human  consciousness  that  human  acts,  at  any  rate, 
must  express  a  well-considered  will  to  power.  From 
such  a  will,  certain  ways  of  treating  wives  and  friends 
will  follow  by  logical  necessity. 

Sin,  with  this  understanding,  appears  as  a  reckless 
Now-saying,  to  the  pleasure  of  action  or  enjoyment;^ 

2  The  thesis  that  pleasure  has  a  meaning  is  likely  to  meet  a  cold 
reception  from  those  whose  scientific  conscience  requires  them  to  assert 
in  all  cases  that  a  primrose  is  a  primrose— and  nothing  more.  Let  me 
say  that  I  do  not  deny  that  pleasure  is  pleasure.  What  I  deny  is  that 
pleasure  to  a  human  being  is  ever  quite  ‘^nothing  but  pleasure.’^ 

What  else,  then,  is  it,  as  a  matter  of  plain  psychology?  Psychologi¬ 
cally,  pleasure  will  be  admitted  an  absorbing  experience:  it  tends  to 
concentrate  the  attention  within  its  own  focus.  But  what,  pray,  does 
it  absorb?  If  it  is  my  pleasure,  it  absorbs  me;  if  yours,  it  absorbs 
you:  it  absorbs  the  self  that  experiences  it.  But  what  is  the  self  when 
absorbed  in  the  pleasure  except  that  pleasure  simply?  The  self  is  the 
pleasure,  if  you  like;  but  here  the  plain  psychologist  is  in  danger  of 
losing  all  the  significant  truth  about  pleasure:  it  would  be  better  to 
state  the  identity  conversely — the  pleasure  is  the  self.  For  the  pleasure 
is  not  a  fixed  entity  to  whose  measure  the  self  shrinks;  it  is  the  self 


SIN  AS  BLINDNESS  AND  UNTEUTH 


123 


and  hence  as  a  false  assertion  that  in  that  pleasure  1 
am  a  complete  man.  I  accept  my  wages;  I  have  not 
paid  the  price  in  labor,  or  in  thought. 

which  is  a  relatively  fixed  entity  to  whose  measure  the  pleasure  tends 
to  expand.  Child  and  man  may  find  pleasure  in  the  same  object;  but 
the  pleasures  are  as  the  child  is  to  the  man. 

What  does  the  self  bring  to  the  pleasure?  Its  meaning.  The  simplest 
meaning  of  pleasure  is  that  it  is  what  life  is  for.  It  satisfies  the  self; 
it  becomes  a  guide.  So  much  meaning  biology  is  inclined  to  assert. 
Bnt  has  it  any  further  meaning? 

Experience  develops  further  meanings.  Pleasure  is  at  first  something 
discovered;  it  is  not  demanded,  it  is  hit  upon.  It  is  an  enlightening 
discovery;  it  seems  to  nnlock  the  secret  of  life,  and  hence  becomes,  as 
we  said,  a  guide.  But  what  is  at  first  a  privilege  becomes  looked  upon, 
just  because  it  seems  to  belong  to  life,  as  a  right.  Pleasure  begins  to 
mean  something  due,  and  claimed,  and  perhaps  rightfully  fought  for. 
The  will  to  power  takes  the  form  that  Hobbes  so  perfectly  describes; 
it  tries  to  ‘‘ensure  forever  the  way  of  my  future  desire.’’  Any  particu¬ 
lar  pleasure  takes  on  the  meaning  of  an  element  in  a  total  life-require¬ 
ment. 

For  human  beings,  experience  passes  through  this  stage,  but  does  not 
stop  there  as  Hobbes  thought.  It  is  found  that  pleasure,  as  a  private 
right,  fails  to  satisfy.  With  prey  in  mouth  the  eat  at  once  becomes  a 
solitary  beast;  and  with  every  pleasurable  absorption  men  also  tend 
to  loosen  their  ties  with  other  men.  Since  pleasure  satisfies  my  will,  it 
tends  to  make  me  complete  in  myself;  every  joy  has  a  centrifugal  com¬ 
ponent,  it  tends  to  be  a  “  joy  apart  from  thee.  ’  ’  Yet  just  this  compo¬ 
nent  makes  the  meaning  of  pleasure  so  far  attained  incomplete.  To  a 
human  being  pleasure  seeks  to  take  on  the  meaning,  not  of  a  private 
victory,  but  of  a  victory  in  which  my  social  world  shares,  either  actually 
or  by  consent.  Eating  ceases  to  mean  scurrying  into  the  thicket  with 
the  snatched  morsel;  it  begins  to  mean  an  opportunity  for  celebrating  a 
common  life. 

There  is  perhaps  no  limit  to  the  meaning  that  a  simple  pleasure  may 
bear;  but  even  to  plain  psychology  it  cannot  be  called  “mere  pleasure.’’ 

Thus,  if  one  reflects  upon  the  phylogenesis  of  our  capacities  for 
pleasure,  he  may  light  upon  the  view  that  every  enjoyment  in  the  human 
being  represents  a  long  history  of  self-denials  on  the  part  of  our  sub¬ 
human  ancestors.  Pleasure  would  acquire  a  further  meaning  for  such 
a  view;  it  would  mean  an  inheritance  of  prehistoric  labor  and  sacrifice. 
And  because  of  this  meaning,  illicit  pleasure  would  mean,  as  for  Mr. 
G.  K.  Chesterton,  the  exploitation  of  a  deposit,  the  violation  of  a  trust. 


124 


CONSCIENCE 


We  cannot  forthwith  define  sin,  however,  as  a  pre¬ 
mature  Now-saying  to  action  or  enjoyment;  it  is  sim¬ 
ply  an  unjustified  Now-saying,  and  it  may  also,  though 
more  rarely,  be  too  late.  In  a  difficult  decision  delay 
may  itself  become  a  momentary  satisfaction:  under 
the  pretense  of  further  thought,  a  lesser  volume  of 
thinking  may  be  accepted — too  little  to  win  the  right 
of  decision.  Thus  sin  may  more  completely  assume 
the  appearance  of  virtue,  and  obliterate  the  descriptive 
differences.  Yet  in  this  guise  also,  it  corresponds  to 
our  analysis:  it  is  the  refusal  to  interpret;  it  is  like¬ 
wise  the  false  assertion,  whether  by  action  or  by  delay, 
that  my  action  expresses  my  attainable  interpretation. 

disloyalty  to  an  implied  compact  with  all  the  elemental  virtue  that  has 
gone  into  our  human  make. 

Or,  if  the  horizon  in  which  our  will  has  to  work  out  its  destiny  is 
enlarged  by  thought,  until  it  tries  to  conceive  the  world  as  whole;  and 
if  that  whole-view  perceives  a  quality  in  the  world  which  might  be 
called  divine ;  then  pleasure  will  appear  as  a  symbol  of  this  divine 
quality,  possibly  as  a  participation  therein.  If  pleasure  is  used  in  such  ^ 
wise  as  to  blur  or  banish  the  holiness,  or  dignity,  or  beauty,  or  infinitude 
of  the  conscious  horizon,  it  is  false  to  that  meaning.  From  this  side,  siji 
is  secularization. 


CHAPTER  XIX 


WHY  MEN  SIN 

IT  is  possible  to  analyze  sin,  and  in  a  measure  to 
describe  it.  It  is  not  possible  to  explain  it.  For 
to  explain  it  would  be  to  show  it  as  the  necessary  or 
invariable  consequence  of  certain  conditions ;  and 
whatever  is  necessary  or  automatic  is  not  sin.  Sin 
implies  that  kind  of  freedom  in  which  the  fate  and 
character  of  each  conscious  act  comes  for  a  moment 
under  the  control  of  ^self’;  and  neither  nature  nor 
environment  nor  God  decides  what  meaning  the  ^ct 
shall  bear. 

It  is  true  that  right-doing  lies  in  the  direction  of 
effort;  and  that  wrong-doing,  as  the  easier  course,  has 
the  advantage  of  the  natural  slope.  Sin  is  likely  to 
pose  as  the  ‘‘law  of  the  members’^  and  to  claim  the 
indulgence  due  to  the  natively  stronger  motive.  The 
burden  of  explanation  would  thus  be  thrown  upon 
doing  right :  we  should  rather  ask  how  it  is  possible 
not  to  sin.  But  we  have  deprived  ourselves  of  tliis 
recourse,  since  the  will,  as  the  central  thread  of  our 
meaning,  is  on  the  side  of  the  fully  interpreted, 
or  right,  action.^  Doing  right,  however,  requires 

1  In  a  self  there  is  no  “  stronger  motive  ’  ’  except  that  which  the  self 
makes  stronger.  After  we  have  acted  it  requires  no  great  wisdom  to  tell 
which  consideration  was  the  prevailing  one.  But  the  wisdom  which  can 
tell  this  heforehand  is  still  to  be  found. 


126 


CONSCIENCE 


trying’^;  and  if  we  were  thorongMy  necessitated 
beings,  we  might  explain  the  variable  vigor  of  onr 
trying  by  the  varying  amount  of  the  energy  at  our 
disposal,  and  the  fluctuations  of  that  hunger  and  thirst 
after  righteousness  with  which  we  are  endowed.  But 
unfortunately  for  this  type  of  explanation,  no  expe¬ 
rience  is  more  familiar  than  that  of  trying  more  or 
less  hard,  within  the  limits  of  the  energy  and  interest 
we  have.  The  moral  issue  lies  wholly  within  the  range 
of  what  trying  we  are  able  to  do. 

But  in  these  respects,  moral  mistakes  seem  to  bear 
a  close  analogy  to  the  mistakes  which  are  inevitable 
■  in  acquiring  any  new  art,  and  may  have  the  same 
explanation.  The  beginner  at  target  practice  will  miss 
the  mark:  that  is  a  safe  prediction.  He  is  entirely 
free  to  hit  it;  and  there  is  no  assignable  reason  why 
he  must  miss  it.  ‘‘Good  shooting,^’  said  a  marksman 
to  me,  “is  simply  a  matter  of  caring  enough  about 
each  shot.^^  Yet  the  beginner  will  miss.  As  time  goes 
on,  he  will  miss  less  frequently, — a  curve  of  his  prog¬ 
ress  in  learning  can  be  drawn.  Some  men  progress 
more  rapidly  than  others,  and  go  farther  toward  a 
perfect  score;  but  there  is  a  similarity  in  all  curves 
of  learning.  Is  not  sin  a  missing  of  the  target,  and 
hence  a  phenomenon  of  the  curve  of  learning? 

For  any  particular  technique  at  which  we  try,  the 
curve  of  learning  holds;  and  so  with  the  virtues  so 
far  as  they  have  a  technique.  Franklin’s  scheme  of 
monthly  practice  was  a  prudent  one.  But  right  is  not 
a  matter  of  matching  an  objectively  definable  standard. 
In  all  such  etforts  the  full  will  of  the  individual  is  on 


WHY  MEN  SIN 


127 


the  side  of  striking  the  mark,  and  the  adjustment 
is  defeated  hy  the  physical  obstacles  of  imperfect 
organization  and  control.  In  the  moral  effort  there 
is  no  difficulty  of  this  sort :  the  nature  of  right  is  to 
be  always  within  reach,  otherwise  there  is  no  obliga¬ 
tion.  The  point  is  that  my  full  will  is  not  on  the  side 
of  striking  that  mark.  Hence  the  analogy  breaks 
down;  and  there  is  no  law  of  learning  for  morality. 
The  sinful  situation  is  not  a  failure  to  reach  what  was 
by  some  organic  law  beyond  reach;  it  is  a  defection 
from  what  was  within  my  power.  I  have,  as  a  fact  of 
history,  preferred  an  easier  course. 

Thus  sin  is  in  all  cases  a  matter  of  history,  or  better, 
of  biography.  Our  judgment  that  all  men  sin  is 
statistical  in  part,  taking  into  account  the  immense 
number  of  decisions  that  men  make;  and  in  part  it  is 
due  to  a  knowledge  of  the  conditions  that  favor 
imperfect  choices.  It  is  on  this  ground  alone  that  we  ' 
can  approach  an  account  of  why  men  sin.  In  most 
general  terms,  sin  is  possible  because  of  the  existence  of 
real  moral  dilemmas  (and  later  of  feigned  dilemmas) ; 
and  every  sin  has  a  ‘case,’  either  of  innocuousness  or 
of  positive  virtue.  When  once  we  have  begun  to  take 
part  in  the  world  of  action,  the  world  sees  to  it  that  we 
are  driven  from  one  venture  to  another :  the  exigencies 
of  growth  compel  us  to  face,  from  time  to  time,  a  new 
step  with  all  its  possibilities  of  error,  while  the  alter¬ 
native  of  playing  safe  in  the  old  way  is  itself  an  error. 
It  might  be  possible  to  show  the  entire  history  of  sin 
as  a  history  of  moral  growth.  I  shall  content  myself 
with  mentioning  a  few  typical  situations. 


128 


CONSCIENCE 


1.  There  is  one  dilemma  that  attends  every  moral 
act;  though  it  is  seldom  that  it  becomes  acute.  It 
concerns  the  process  of  coming  to  a  decision.  There 
is  an  obvious  danger  of  false  judgment  in  acting 
before  deliberation  is  complete;  but  there  is  likewise 
a  danger  of  error  in  holding  decision  until  deliberation 
can  be  complete. 

For  deliberation  never  reaches  anything  but  a  rough 
completion.  Through  experience  every  man-iinds  for 
himself  a  degree  of  certainty  which  he  regards  as 
sufficient  for  practical  purposes :  he  calls  himself 
^certain’  when  this  standard  is  reached,  and  for  the 
most  part  his  deliberative  process  rises  quickly  to  this 
level  and  passes  into  action  without  hesitation.  For 
he  has  found  that  if  he  acts  at  all,  he  must  act  when 
his  action  will  fit  the  case;  he  must  reach  the  best 
possible  view  of  the  case  in  the  time  permitted.  He 
is  but  occasionally  aware  of  what  is  universally  true: 
that  no  case  has  ever  been  seen  by  him  in  its  full 
meaning.  And  since  all  of  our  fiats  are  issued  in 
partial  obscurity,  the  chance  is  offered,  as  they  fall 
through  the  dark  of  the  mind,  for  deflection  toward 
the  lurking  magnets  of  the  cruder  wishes.  Thus  there 
is  wrong  in  delaying  beyond  the  moment  of  an  action  ^s 
possible  meaning;  and  yet  the  imperfect  reflection 
involved  is  the  natural  cover  of  sin. 

2.  No  man  can  live  a  moral  life  in  aloofness  from 
society  and  its  various  alliances;  yet  all  alliance  is 
alliance  with  the  imperfect.  It  might  be  hard  to  say 
which  is  in  the  greater  danger  of  political  error,  the 
party  man  or  the  non-party  man.  Each  has  his  own 


WHY  MEN  SIN 


129 


peril;  and  a  cynic  would  have  it,  we  suspect  both.  It 
is  evident,  however,  that  growth  lies  in  the  direction 
of  belonging.  It  is  at  the  cost  of  losing  all  effect  that 
one  refrains  from  attachment  to  whatever  is  historical 
and  organized  in  the  world.  Institutions  exist  to  lend 
to  each  individual  member  their  over-individual  dimen¬ 
sions  and  scope.  It  is  not  alone  a  practical  but  a  moral 
peril  if  I  reject  their  aid. 

It  is  equally  evident  that  there  are  no  perfect 
institutions.  Whatever  is  historical  inherits  the 
strength  and  the  weakness  of  all  the  past  from  which 
it  comes;  and  whatever  is  organized  must  make  use 
of  concrete  men  whose  virtues  are  mixed  with  their 
vices.  Is  it  possible  to  be  an  historical  entity  without 
partaking  of  the  evil  with  which  one  must  make 
alliance?  It  is  not  politics  alone  that  involves  this 
threat  of  contamination  and  compromise :  nothing 
historical  is  free  from  it,  the  church,  the  professional 
group,  social  traditions,  societies  everywhere, — even 
friendship,  if  Emerson’s  dictum  is  right,  ‘‘Friends 
descend  to  meet.”  It  is  possible  to  be  in  the  world 
and  not  of  it;  but  is  it  possible  to  work  with  it  and  not 
be  of  it? 

I  do  not  say  that  it  is  impossible:  I  say  that  there 
is  a  moral  difficulty  in  either  alternative.  I  must  ally 
myself;  but  I  must  vigilantly  interpret  that  alliance 
as  Burke  interpreted  the  social  contract,  as  an  alliance 
with  all  the  honest  strivings  of  my  comrades,  to  the 
rejection  of  the  ease  and  profit  of  all  guilty  conformity. 
In  all  positive  living,  the  morally  necessary  ends  are 
perpetually  pleading  the  justification  of  the  means. 


130 


CONSCIENCE 


and  who  can  avoid  being  carried  from  time  to  time 
across  the  evanescent  line!  Sin  has  no  need  to  enter 
life  as  a  separate  deed: — it  may  be  the  simple  pro¬ 
longing  of  a  good  deed. 

3.  The  moral  life  must  become  social,  we  have  said : 
growth  lies  that  way.  Among  the  necessary  incidents 
of  this  socially  moral  existence  is  the  use  of  moral 
authorities,  which  we  have  already  referred  to  as  a 
natural  habit  of  conscience.  Perfect  rectitude  implies 
an  art  of  preserving  solitude  of  decision  amid  the  mass 
of  suggestion  borne  in  upon  us  from  our  environment : 
the  distinction  between  the  good  and  the  evil  of  the 
alliances  we  were  speaking  of  requires  and  assumes 
this  power.  But  we  cannot  escape  the  need  of  moral 
authority  any  more  than  we  can  escape  the  time- 
element  in  decision.  ’  And  the  dilemma  lies  not  so  much 
in  the  likelihood  that  we  will  choose  radically  wrong 
authorities  (for  humanity  has  shown  a  singular 
unanimity  in  its  major  selections,  its  heroes  and 
saints)  as  that  we  will  take  our  authorities  whole. 

It  is  doubtful  whether  any  leader  is  not  liable  at 
some  point  to  become  a  misleader.  At  such  a  point 
clear  judgment  for  the  follower  becomes  peculiarly 
difficult,  since  it  involves  a  plunge  out  of  congenial 
company  into  solitude.  Moral  disillusionment  is  the 
severest  of  experiences.  The  habit  of  deference  takes 
on  the  psychological  quality  of  a  secondary  virtue: 
when  the  rift  appears  in  the  halo,  it  becomes  necessary 
to  choose  either  the  distress  of  opposing  an  honored 
guidance,  or  that  tacit  complicity  which  is  the  parent 


WHY  MEN  SIN  131 

of  cynicism,  and  whose  creed  is,  ‘‘All  men,  even  the 
best,  are  at  heart  false.’’ 

Such  an  experience  is  severe  only  because  there  was 
an  initial  error  in  the  degree  of  reliance  placed  upon 
the  authority  in  question.  The  will  had  been  seduced 
into  ease  by  the  presence  of  an  object  of  too  great 
trust:  sin  was  already  there.  For  this  reason,  it  is 
natural  to  plead  for  the  alternative  of  rejecting 
authority  altogether  in  moral  matters,  an  alternative 
in  which  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  there  is  an  equal 
danger  of  moral  faltering,  ineptitude,  and  obliquity, 
even  to  the  limited  extent  to  which  the  discarding  of 
moral  guidance  is  possible. 

4.  If  moral  disagreement  is  one  of  the  incidents 
of  moral  growth;  and  if  it  is  the  business  of  men  to 
incorporate  their  convictions  in  action, — as  it  is ;  there 
is  no  escape  from  the  occasional  dilemma  between 
fighting  for  your  conviction  and  letting  your  convic¬ 
tion  fail  by  avoiding  hostilities. 

What  I  conceive  as  right  I  am  bound  to  work  for, 
and  if  need  be  fight  for.  The  distinction  between 
working  and  fighting  is  gradual:  in  either  case  I  am 
opposing  myself  to  what  opposes  my  purpose.  The 
difference  lies  in  the  amount  of  faith  I  have  in  mv 
opponent,  and  in  the  time  and  effort  I  can  subtract 
from  my  work  to  accomplish  his  conversion.  There 
comes  a  time  at  which  I  must  decide  that  he  that  is 
not  for  me  is  against  me :  to  defer  this  decision  is  as 
evil  as  to  hasten  it.  Yet  wherever  opposition  enters, 
there  is  so  great  a  likelihood  of  the  entrance  of  moral 


132 


CONSCIENCE 


wrong,  that  we  are  often  counselled  rather  to  forgo  the 
good  it  aims  at. 

For  when  one  fights  for  human  rights,  is  he  not  also 
fighting  for  his  own?  And  when  one  fights  for  his 
own  rights,  is  he  not  also  fighting  for  his  comforts? 
Since  public  wrong,  as  a  rule,  first  shows  itself  in 
economic  injury,  he  who  fights  for  liberty  and  justice 
has  to  reflect  that  his  fight  intends  also  to  be  profitable. 
His  opponent  will  seldom  fail  to  remind  him  of  this 
fact,  and  to  interpret  his  psychology  accordingly. 
And  when  motives  are  mixed,  the  warrior  can  hardly 
be  too  confident  about  the  color  of  his  own  purpose. 
The  justest  warfare,  in  its  beginnings,  is  open  to 
suspicion. 

And  further,  however  perfectly  the  belligerent  spirit 
is  at  first  in  accord  with  the  necessities  of  honor,  its 
momentum  tends  to  carry  it  beyond  the  point  of  the 
moral  issue.  The  activity  of  fighting  has  its  own 
instinctive  delight ;  and  while  the  belligerent  exaltation 
is  probably  intended  by  nature  to  make  easier  the 
transition  from  comparative  sloth  to  full  activity  under 
a  vital  demand,  it  is  at  least  as  difficult  for  this 
passion  as  for  others  to  hold  itself  within  the  bounds 
of  this  function,  as  means  to  an  ulterior  end.  And 
morally,  it  is  more  necessary  that  it  should  accept 
this  meaning. 

Perhaps  it  is  superfluous  to  point  out  the  moral 
peril  of  warfare;  yet  it  may  serve  a  purpose  in 
measuring  the  moral  peril  of  the  alternative.  The 
dangers  of  hostility  are  obvious;  but  those  of  peace 
are  incomparably  deceitful. 


WHY  MEN  SIN 


133 


It  was  Thomas  Hobbes  who  adopted  the  maxim 
‘‘Seek  peace  and  pursue  it^^  as  the  first  law  not  of 
love  but  of  enlightened  selfishness.  As  the  wrongs 
which  I  have  not  combatted  and  might  have  combatted 
are  indefinitely  more  numerous  than  the  selfish 
interests  for  which  I  have  fought,  it  appears  to  me 
that  incomparably  the  greater  bulk  of  moral  error 
is  that  which  enters  the  will  under  the  garb  of  peace. 
Fighting  is  hard  and  distracting  work:  peace,  I  say, 
has  easier  victories.  But  what  if  this  more  ideal 
warfare  does  not  take  place?  Here  is  my  community, 
for  example,  in  which  I  do  not  have  to  look  far  for 
examples  of  injustice,  waste,  maladministration,  which 
are  bound  to  affect  the  health,  happiness,  or  safety  of 
myself,  my  children,  and  many  others;  yet  I  do  not 
take  issue  with  them.  There  are  philosophers  in 
Europe  who  have  been  preaching  for  some  time  the 
gospel  of  the  right  of  might,  or  of  the  strong  culture 
which  judges  itself  the  best.  I  have  known  of  this 
too,  and  have  not  lifted  a  voice  against  it.  Had  those 
who  knew  of  it  risen  in  time,  and  had  they  faced  the 
ills  of  which  this  doctrine  was  but  a  symptom,  the 
world  might  well  have  been  spared  its  last  and 
greatest  war.  The  test  of  an  evil  peace  is  that  its 
fruit  is  discord  and  not  unity;  and  conversely,  any 
peace  that  eventuates  in  war  is  thereby  shown  to  have 
been  an  evil  peace. 

The  moral  seductiveness  of  peace  lies  in  its  method 
of  dealing  with  wrong:  it  is  apt  to  deal  with  it  as  an 
unclean  person  deals  with  dirt, — by  preferring  not  to 
recognize  its  existence,  hence  leaving  it  unmet  and 


134 


CONSCIENCE 


uncured.  The  clean  soul  is  militantly  eager  to  find 
the  dirt :  the  true  lover  of  peace  with  a  similar 
obsession  seeks  for  the  spot  that  is  unharmonized,  and 
makes  an  issue  of  that  spot  until  it  is  wiped  out.  He 
smells  afar  otf  the  issues  that  threaten  war,  ferrets 
them  out  in  advance,  and  tries  to  settle  them.^  But  the 
greater  part  of  our  vociferous  cult  of  peace  has 
become  foul,  stagnant,  attempting  to  conceal  in  dark 
closets  the  underlying  differences  of  interest  and  the 
unresolved  dislikes  of  the  world.  Its  policy  is  the 
policy  of  Hush.  It  is  the  cover  of  our  deepest  and 
largest  guilt. 

5.  To  generalize  from  situations  such  as  the  above, 
the  only  right  ways  of  behavior  are  ways  which  with 
a  slight  change  of  inner  adjustment  become  wrong 
ways.  Conversely,  to  venture  a  wrong  way  is  a  . 
condition  of  finding  the  right  way.  This  much  the 
search  after  righteousness  has  in  common  with  the 
acquisition  of  skill.  We  begin,  indeed,  with  something 
better  than  random  movements;  but  we  do  not  begin 
with  a  self-consciousness  quick  to  discern  the  point  at 
which  the  imperfect  maxim  usurps  the  nest  of  the 
perfect  one.  There  is  nothing  to  be  achieved  in  the 
moral  life  except  at  a  risk  which  is  a  moral  risk.  He 
who  will  not  risk  falling  into  egotism  or  undue  self- 
assertion  can  hardly  win  an  honorable  effectiveness; 
for  the  crude  plunge  of  action,  if  it  has  the  merit  of 
vigor  and  decision,  will  rarely  escape  at  first  the  touch 

2  One  of  the  best  ante-bellum  expressions  of  this  genuine  concern  for 
peace  that  has  come  to  my  attention  is  in  a  small  work  of  the  great 
German  jurist,  Josef  Kohler,  in  those  sections  of  Moderne  Kechts- 
probleme  which  deal  with  international  affairs. 


WHY  MEN  SIN  135 

of  insensitiveness.  And  he  who  will  not  risk  a  fall 
into  cowardice  or  ease  will  hardly  find  the  point  of  an 
honorably  pacific  will.  I  do  not  say  that  w^e  must  fall : 
I  say  that  we  must  risk  the  fall.  We  must  find  our 
moral  equipoise  through  trial  and  the  risk  of  error. 

But  behind  the  vagaries  of  such  moral  self-educa¬ 
tion,  there  lies  the  good-will  to  win  this  equipoise, 
which  is  the  redeeming  feature  behind  many  an  actual 
sin.  It  is  the  total  will,  not  the  partial  will,  which 
gives  the  ultimate  character  to  an  act ;  and  so  a  career 
of  moral  adventure,  if  it  is  a  genuine  search  for  truth 
and  not  a  covert  lust  for  the  joys  of  the  taster,  may 
be  by  conscience  itself  required  of  the  soul.  Or  let  me 
rather  say,  it  is  by  conscience  required  of  every  soul; 
though  it  also  is  attended  by  the  subtlest  moral  peril. 
For  morality  that  is  not  original,  is  no  morality. 

It  is  with  this  proviso  of  a  genuine  and  ultimate  will 
to  win  moral  truth  that  we  look  if  not  with  leniency 
yet  with  hope  upon  those  statistically  certain  lapses 
which  make  of  every  individual  a  participant  in  the 
sins  of  his  race.  For  given  this  good-will,  the  forces 
making  for  righteousness  are  twofold:  the  intrinsic 
attraction  of  the  good,  and  the  repulsion  of  the  evil. 
Sin,  when  it  occurs,  enhances  the  force  of  evil,  by 
channelling  deeper  the  path  already  easier  by  nature ; 
but  it  also  enhances  the  force  of  good,  by  awakening 
the  reaction  we  call  remorse.  It  is  a  part  of  our  moral 
destiny,  as  a  race,  that  we  must  work  out  our  moral 
life  by  the  aid  of  both  forces,  the  quest  of  blessedness 
and  the  sorrowful  ruing  of  our  own  guilt.  In  so  far 
as  sin  is  capable  of  explanation  in  terms  of  a  balance 


136 


CONSCIENCE 


of  forces,  the  explanation  is  this :  that  since  we  mnst 
win  moral  life  through  moral  adventure,  we  need  to 
add  the  push  of  rue  to  the  pull  of  the  ultimate  good, 
in  order  to  find  our  adequate  and  complete  moral 
motive. 


CHAPTER  XX 


SIN  AS  STATUS 


There  was  an  ancient  theological  conception 
which  attained  a  large  social  importance,  and 
even  a  political  importance  in  the  days  when  a  wide¬ 
spread  fear  of  future  punishment  was  a  factor  in 
allegiance  to  institutions.  This  conception  can  be 
couched  in  terms  of  a  rude  syllogism,  somewhat  as 
follows : 

The  wages  of  sin  is  death ; 

All  men  are  horn  in  sin ;  ergo. 

All  men  are,  by  birth,  mortal. 

I  doubt  whether  this  argument  has  been  refuted:  in 
many  minds  it  has  suffered  a  severer  fate, — that  of 
being  outgrown  by  the  gradual  wearing  out  of  the 
belief  in  its  premises.  Upon  the  view  of  sin  which  we 
have  so  far  developed  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as 
original  sin’’:  every  man  is  his  own  Adam.  As  for 
death,  whether  physical  death  or  the  cessation  of 
personal  existence,  we  have  ceased  to  see  any  causal 
connection  between  this  and  moral  delinquency.  Sin 
of  course  has  its  consequences,  both  social  and 
psychological ;  the  attention  of  ethical  theory  has  been 
largely  occupied  with  these,  as  is  natural  in  a  prag¬ 
matic  era  of  thought.  But  the  fact  that  these  ascer¬ 
tainable  consequences  exist  hardly  disposes  of  the 


138 


CONSCIENCE 


question  whether  there  are  also  metaphysical  conse¬ 
quences.  The  idea  of  a  moral  causality  which  runs 
deeper  than  the  surface  of  phenomenal  connections  is 
both  ancient  and  modern,  a  property  of  all  great 
religions  and  of  various  philosophies.  As  a  meta¬ 
physical  notion  it  lies  just  beyond  the  range  of  our 
present  enquiry.  But  it  is  human  nature,  and  particu¬ 
larly  moral  human  nature,  to  make  conscious  con¬ 
nections  with  ultimate  facts ;  for  this  reason,  we 
cannot  fairly  finish  our  own  task  without  stepping 
over  this  border. 

We  may  remind  ourselves  at  this  point  that  we  have 
been  speaking  of  sin  in  but  one  of  its  two  traditional 
meanings.  Sin  has  commonly  referred  to  individual 
deeds, — and  so  we  have  understood  it;  but  it  has  also 
referred  to  a  status.  As  a  status,  or  condition,  it  has 
implied  impurity,  pollution,  liability  to  banishment, 
etc.,  metaphysical  outlawry.  The  word  sinner  refers 
to  this  status  rather  than  to  the  particular  deeds. 
Eegarding  it  in  this  way  we  should  have  to  say  that 
so  far  from  rejecting  the  notion  that  there  is  a  sinful 
status,  we  should  have  to  affirm  one,  so  far,  at  least, 
as  psychology  can  carry  us. 

My  moral  status,  as  a  fact  of  psychology,  would  be 
the  condition  of  my  preferences — my  character.  And 
my  preferences  I  cannot  modify  in  any  so  immediate 
way  as  I  can  modify  a  deed.  Suppose  that,  whether 
by  birth  or  by  acquired  habit,  I  simply  do  not  as  a  fact 
prefer  righteousness, — at  the  price  of  moral  effort. 
I  might  not  call  this  condition  depravity.  I  should 
certainly  not  call  it  holiness. 


SIN  AS  STATUS 


139 


And  this,  on  the  whole,  seems  to  be  the  condition  I 
am  in.  The  necessary  interest  I  have  in  blessedness 
is  relatively  faint;  it  appears  to  me  rather  as  some¬ 
thing  known  about,  or  heard  about,  than  of  poignant, 
present,  and  compelling  value.  And  while  some 
shimmer  of  the  beatific  vision  may  lend  a  distant  glow 
to  the  pursuit  of  duty,  the  actual  work  of  righteousness 
has  to  deal  rather  with  the  raw  materials  of  which 
happiness  is  made  than  with  happiness  itself.  It  is 
like  a  price  paid  in  advance,  sometimes  far  in  advance : 
there  is  a  strain  upon  faith,  upon  imagination.  One 
walks  out  upon  his  idea^^, — not  upon  his  immediate 
appreciation.  Such  is  the  balance  of  my  nature;  it  is 
this  balance  which  makes  it  historically  necessary  that 
ruing  should  add  itself  to  the  lifting  force  of  the 
good.  And  for  aught  I  can  see,  this  balance  came  with 
me  into  the  world,  as  a  part  of  my  inherited  being. 
From  the  first  I  willed  the  good  with  an  etfort;  and 
so,  perhaps,  as  Augustine  argues,  what  I  willed  was 
never  quite  good.  I  do  not  say  I  should  be  condemned 
or  punished  for  this;  I  am  now  speaking  of  statuses, 
i.e.,  of  simple  metaphysical  facts. 

We  need  not,  however,  attribute  this  judgment  to  * 
Augustine  alone.  If  Aristotle  is  right,  we  are  all  of 
us  more  or  less  in  the  position  of  patients  who  cling 
to  their  illnesses,  of  those,  familiar  to  psychiatry,  who 
resist  being  robbed  of  their  delusions,  even  of  their 
persecutions.  It  takes  the  good  wholly  to  prefer  the 
good.  The  holy  will,  no  doubt,  is  something  to  be 
acquired ;  it  is  not  innate.  If  this  is  what  is  meant  by 
being  born  in  sin,  I  do  not  know  how  I  should  deny  it. 


140 


s 


CONSCIENCE 


.  I  doubt  whether  this  apparently  somber  judgment  of 
original  human  nature  is  primarily  a  product  of 
theological  speculation.  It  has  at  least  a  strong  sup¬ 
port  in  common  experience.  For  quite  apart  from  all 
theories,  self-condemnation,  when  it  comes,  has  an 
extraordinary  way  of  applying  retroactively:  blame 
frequently  reaches  back  over  a  past  which  seemed 
innocent  of  the  moral  question  involved.  A  new 
insight  tends  to  condemn  all  prior  ignorance,  not  alone 
regretting,  but  accusing,  the  long  persistence  in  the 
lower  level  of  life.  The  lover  enters  his  new  vista  of 
consciousness  with  an  embarrassment  which  is  partly 
moral, — the  symptom  of  a  critical  self -judgment  which 
surveys  the  whole  domain  of  past  choices.  He  accuses 
that  past  self  at  least  of  a  moral  inertness ;  it  was  dull, 
as  atheists  are  dull  who  cannot  guess  God’s  presence 
out  of  sight.” 

The  argument  of  this  retroactive  judgment  may  be 
this.  That  my  life  has  been,  if  not  an  active  rejection 
of  the  good,  yet  a  long  acquiescence  in  something  less 
than  good.  I  have  failed  to  shake  myself  awake  to 
the  conditions  of  my  own  welfare.  I  have  accepted 
without  protest  enjoyments  I  have  not  earned :  I  have 
not  enquired  into  the  right  of  my  own  ease.  Back  of 
all  my  passivity  was  an  awareness  that  life  has,  after 
all,  its  conditions;  and  I  failed  to  force  myself  up  to 
the  exertion  or  hardship  of  learning  them.  There  was 
a  possible  subconscious  integrity  in  me  which  I  was 
disloyal  to,  all  the  while  there  was  no  one  to  hold  me 
to  it.  I  have  not  known  in  detail  what  I  ought  to  do, 
and  I  cannot  be  judged  for  what  I  have  not  known. 


SIN  AS  STATUS 


141 


but  I  judge  myself  for  living  in  an  ignorance  which 
my  will  knew  could  be  overcome.  I  was  not  without 
that  clue,  nor  that  desire.^ 

Apart  from  particular  deeds  of  sin,  then,  our 
common  moral  consciousness  recognizes  something 
like  a  sinful  status.  As  for  those  deeds  themselves, 
it  is  a  matter  of  daily  experience  that  they  bring  a  new 
status  with  them.  Debasement  is  not  an  act;  it  is  a 
condition  of  choice  resulting  from  a  series  of  acts. 
Each  abandonment  of  the  effort  for  complete  interpre¬ 
tation  makes  the  next  abandonment  easier;  and  what 
conscience  is  concerned  about  is  not  alone  the  issue 
of  this  act  but  also,  and  primarily,  the  psychological 
status  which  it  creates.  But  what  is  the  significance 
of  this  status,  whether  original  or  acquired?  Allowing 
that  We  are  justified  in  viewing  it  with  regret,  if  not 
wholly  with  indignation,  is  there  any  excuse  for  the 
terror  and  guilt  of  soul,  the  anxiety  neurosis’’  of  the 
older  theology? 

1  In  greater  detail:  There  have  been  occasions  in  which  I  could  not 
be  reconciled  with  my  brother,  through  lack  of  available  sympathy  at 
that  moment.  But  I  know  that  that  sympathy  would  have  been  avail¬ 
able,  had  I  apart  from  times  of  stress  been  perceptive  of  facts  which 
it  was  my  business  to  know,  if  I  had  been  duly  out-living,  objective, 
alive.  Or,  I  cannot  think  of  the  right  thing  to  say  at  a  given  moment; 
and  who  can  blame  me  for  not  thinking  of  the  right  thing?  Yet  I  may 
well  blame  myself.  For  this,  too,  while  a  result  of  present  perception, 
is  of  a  perception  built  on  past  alertness.  Now  I  must  prepare  what  I 
would  say,  if  I  am  to  appear  well.  But  if  I  were  what  I  would  present 
myself  as  being,  consistently  and  always,  I  need  ‘Hake  no  thought  for 
what  I  shall  speak’’;  myself  would  speak.  What  I  am  not  accuses  me. 
Even  what  I  am  not  in  intellect  traces  back  to  lapses  from  what  I  have 
been  admonished  to  become.  Admonished  by  what?  By  nothing  except 
by  the  perception  that  “life  lies  this  way,  rather  than  that,  and  for 
the  most  part,  in  living  in  the  object.”  Admonished,  if  you  like,  by 
the  original  synderesis,  adequate  to  its  own  work. 


J 


142  CONSCIENCE 

/ 

We  shall  s6e  more  clearly  if  we  eliminate  the 
psychological  element  of  blame,  and  ask  again  simply 
for  fact.  What  does  this  status  entail?  I  do  not  know. 

■'••ft- 

But  I  am  not  prepared  to  say  that  it  entails  nothing. 
If  I  were  told  that  it  entails  a  form  of  mortality,  I 
should  lend  the  assertion  a  respectful  hearing.  It 
would  seem  reasonable  to  me  that  a  lesser  status,  in 
things  relating  to  insight,  idea,  appreciation,  should 
be  a  measure  of  lesser  validity  in  point  of  reality.  If 
ideas  are  the  most  real  things  in  the  universe,  this 
would  most  certainly  be  the  case.  If  life  is  to  be 
measured  in  terms  of  intercourse  with  minds  with 
whom  I  am  fit  to  converse,  I  can  see  that  this  status 
of  inferiority  is  one  that  must  carry  with  it  a  lesser 
degree  of  life. 

Putting  away  all  emphasis  on  moral  ideals,  let  me 
look  at  things  naturally.  It  seems  in  this  sense 
natural  to  me  that  men  should  be  sinful.  It  seems 
also  natural  to  me  that  they  should  be  mortal.  It  is 
not  mortality  that  looks  strange  to  me;  it  is  immor¬ 
tality.  I  could  not  rebel  if  I  were  told,  without 
prejudice,  that  my  range  of  existence  would  be  as  the 
range  of  my  own  effective  wishes.  This,  I  should  say, 
is  obvious  justice.  Let  those  who  care  for  immortality 
take  the  pains;  let  the  others  have  their  own  finite 
reward.  Let  each  have  the  degree  of  life  which  his 
own  status — by  its  natural  hold  on  reality — commands. 

This  would  leave  us  all  in  calm,  were  this  the  last 
word.  For  who  could  regard  that  a  ‘‘ punishment 
which  is  simply  a  failure  to  attain  an  end  that  one 
does  not  want?  You  thunder  at  me  that  unless  I 


SIN  AS  STATUS 


143 


/ 


repent  of  my  sin,  I  shall  perish.  I  reply,  I  am  content 
to  perish — indeed  I  had  never  aimed  at  anything  else : 
I  have  not  ^‘insisted  on  being  immortal.^’ 

But  we  are  not  thus  left,  by  nature,  at  onr  natural 
ease.  Having  become  self-conscious,  we  have  no  choice 
but  to  see  life  for  the  good  it  is,  and  to  he  restless  at 
the  thought  of  exclusion  from  that  good.  To  lose  life, 
to  lose  the  quality  of  life,  to  lose  the  possibility  of 
responding  to  what  we  believe  to  be  the  best,  and  hence 
the  possibility  of  being  with  the  best,  to  be  unable,  as 
Dostoievski’s  Father  Zossima  has  it, — to  be  unable 
to  love,  and  to  know  this  inahility  and  this  loss:  this 
is  a  torment  to  man  as  it  is  not  to  the  other  creatures. 
If  man  must  recognize  in  himself  a  status  of  natural 
finitude,  we  must  also  admit,  as  an  element  in  his 
original  equipment,  an  impulse  which  repudiates  that 
status  and  demands  a  being  at  the  level  of  his  appre¬ 
ciation.  This  is  not  something  different  from  the  will 
to  power;  but  it  is  the  deepest  expression  of  it.  It  is 
the  will  to  overcome  death. 

Eeligion  has  had  this  service  to  render:  it  has 
co-operated  with  this  human  unwillingness  to  accept 
mortality.  It  has  constantly  reminded  man  how  easily 
he  may  remain  mortal,  and  how  hardly  he  may  earn 
immortality.  It  has  made  him  pray  with  a  touch  of 
fear,  ^‘Take  not  thy  holy  spirit  from  me.^’  There  are 
those  who  refer  to  this  state  of  mind  as  an  ^anxiety 
neurosis’:  it  may  become  such.  But  in  substance,  it 
is  simply  the  original  man  in  his  wholeness  facing  the 
fact  of  his  natural  status.  Others  have  called  it  the 
‘divine  spark’  which  somehow  disturbs  our  clod. 


y 


144 


CONSCIENCE 


Names  matter  little ;  but  the  experience,  I  dare  say,  in 
some  form  conld  ill  be  spared  from  the  armory  of 
man’s  remaking. 

This  completes  onr  survey  of  original  human  nature. 
We  shall  now  turn  to  the  process  of  its  remaking. 


PART  IV 


EXPERIENCE 


•J 


CHAPTER  XXI 


THE  AGENCIES  OF  REMAKING 

IN  studying  original  human  nature,  we  have  already 
begun  the  study  of  the  remaking  of  human  nature. 
For  remaking  is  in  large  part  a  work  of  man  upon 
himself,  i.e.,  the  gradual  transformation  of  the  frag¬ 
mentary  and  particular  impulses  by  the  central  in¬ 
stinct,  the  will.  The  self-conscious  being  is  inevitably 
a  self -changing  being;  and  what  we  have  called  the 
moral  aspect  of  original  nature  is  simply  the  self- 
conscious  will  taking  a  broad  cosmic  responsibility  for 
the  work  of  self-building,  making  itself  a  present 
partner  with  man’s  remoter  destiny. 

The  moral  consciousness  is  not  separable  from  any 
other  aspect  of  self-consciousness.  It  is  not  necessarily 
a  moral  sense  which  may  lead  one  to  such  reflections 
as  am  awkward,  or  slow,  or  peculiar,  or  inefficient” ; 
yet  in  judgments  of  this  sort,  if  there  is  a  morale 
behind  them,  remaking  processes  begin.  Wherever  the 
human  being  can  catch  a  glimpse  of  himself  as  a  whole, 
self-judgment  will  emerge,  and  the  central  instinct 
will  begin  to  impose  its  findings  upon  each  impulse 
severally. 

And  strictly  speaking,  nothing  can  transform  a 
will  but  itself.  It  is  easily  possible  to  force  a  man  to 
behave  this  way  or  that,  by  various  sorts  of  coercion ; 


148 


EXPEEIENCE 


but  this  is  not  to  effect  a  change  in  his  instincts,  and 
unless  the  instincts  are  reached  there  is  no  change  in 
the  man.  To  change  human  nature  is  to  change  what 
it  wants,  or  wills,  and  nothing  can  naturalize  within 
the  will  such  a  change  but  the  will  itself.^ 

But  the  inner  factors  do  no  work  except  in  conjunc¬ 
tion  with  outer  occasions  which  furnish  the  materials 
and  the  incentives  for  self-judgment.  And  this 
co-operation  of  inner  with  outer  factors  of  change  is 
what  we  mean  by  the  word  ‘  experience.  ’ 

It  is  customary  to  make  a  contrast  between  what  one 
learns  on  the  basis  of  his  own  experience  and  what  he 
learns  from  his  social  environment.  On  this  ground 

1  It  is  the  recognition  of  this  truth  which  distinguishes  modern 
education,  the  education  of  freedom  as  opposed  to  that  of  constraint; 
the  principle  has  been  generally  understood  from  the  times,  at  latest,  of 
Pestalozzi  and  Froebel. 

No  doubt,  external  pressure  long  enough  continued,  a  long  imprison¬ 
ment,  for  example,  will  be  followed  by  some  change  of  character.  You 
may  be  able  to  recognize  a  convict  as  easily  as  you  recognize  a  member 
of  the  more  liberal  professions.  But  if  so,  it  is  because  a  degree  of 
consent  has  domesticated  in  him  as  in  them,  the  presumably  freer  people, 
certain  of  the  repeated  details  and  attitudes  of  his  daily  program.  The 
point  is,  that  however  little  the  program  itself  may  be  one  of  his  choice, 
the  habits  are  his  habits^ — his  ways  of  adapting  his  will  to  a  persistent 
situation.  And  such  habits  may,  of  course,  mean  little  change  in  the 
deeper  strata  of  character. 

As  a  rule,  it  is  true,  constraint  does  finally  invade  a  will  incapable 
of  permanent  rebellion.  It  reaches  it  through  this  middle  stage  of  habit; 
for  habits  of  any  kind  though  imposed  by  necessity  will  reveal  variations 
more  or  less  alluring,  and  the  more  alluring  may  become  accepted  by  the 
pliable  character  as  its  own  choice.  Thus  force  may  develop  into 
seduction,  for  better  or  for  worse:  and  no  educational  theory  can  safely 
neglect  the  fact  that  many  a  horse,  driven  unwillingly  to  water,  finds  that 
it  wants  to  drinJc.  We  have  no  right  to  conclude,  because  all  remaking 
must  be  founded  on  consent,  that  therefore,  in  all  education,  obtaining 
consent  is  preliminary. 


THE  AGENCIES  OF  EEMAKING 


149 


we  might  be  inclined  to  divide  the  agencies  of  remaking 
into  two  groups  which  we  might  broadly  label,  expe¬ 
rience  and  training.  This  distinction  must  have  some 
justification.  Otherwise  there  would  be  no  meaning 
in  the  question  whether  social  pressure,  or  some 
particular  brand  of  social  pressure,  is  helpful  or  hurt¬ 
ful  to  human  nature.  Such  a  question  implies  that 
there  is  a  normal  course  of  development  which  human 
nature,  left  to  itself,  its  own  data  and  reflection,  would 
tend  to  realize.  When,  for  example,  Mr.  Bertrand 
Russell  says  that  ‘‘those  who  have  had  most  of 
‘education^  are  very  often  atrophied  in  their  mental 
and  spiritual  life’’ — and  no  doubt  he  is  right — he 
implies  that  this  mental  and  spiritual  life  of  the 
individual  mind  has  a  natural  growth  and  destiny  of 
its  own,  capable  in  some  way  of  being  ascertained  and 
used  as  a  standard  for  judging  the  results  of  social 
action.  We  might  then  be  expected  to  show  what 
experience  would  do  with  human  nature  if  there  were 
no  such  thing  as  social  pressure  and  education. 

It  is  obvious,  however,  that  social  experience  is  an 
integral  part  of  individual  experience ;  since  individual 
experience  has  neither  its  complete  data  nor  its  work¬ 
ing  tools  apart  from  social  interaction.  The  various 
standards  of  self -judgment  gain  certainty  and  vigor 
only  in  the  give  and  take  of  the  group;  there  are  no 
more  impressive  arguments  for  changing  one’s  ways 
than  the  wholly  spontaneous  reactions  of  one’s  fellows ; 
and  the  private  self  hardly  knows  its  own  desires 
apart  from  the  experiences  that  come  through  play, 
submission,  dominance,  affection,  and  the  like.  Isola- 


150 


EXPEKIENCE 


tion,  actual  or  theoretical,  would  give  us  as  distorted 
a  view  of  the  work  of  experience  as  of  original  human 
nature.  There  is  thus  no  point  in  attempting  a  dis¬ 
tinction  between  the  effects  of  solitary  experience  and 
the  etfects  of  companionship :  the  only  distinction 
worth  drawing  v/ould  be  between  one’s  own  reflection 
upon  his  entire  experience,  social  and  solitary,  and 
his  neighbor’s  reflection,  especially  when  the  neigh¬ 
borly  views  are  enforced  by  artificial  rewards  and 
punishments. 

This  is  the  distinction  which  we  shall  undertake  to 
draw,  meaning  by  ^experience’  simply  that  inner 
digestion  of  data  of  all  sorts  whereby  the  outcome  of 
every  essay  in  behavior  becomes  a  basis  for  modifying 
the  next  similar  essay,  and  excluding  the  influence  of 
all  deliberate  suggestion  and  training.  We  shall  first 
glance  at  the  task  which  experience  in  this  sense  has 
to  accomplish. 


CHAPTER  XXII 


THE  TASK  OF  EXPERIENCE 

There  is  more  reshaping  to  he  done  in  the  human 
being  than  in  any  other  creature.  This  is  partly 
because  in  him  the  instincts  appear  in  more  numerous 
fragments,  less  fixed  in  their  connections ;  and  partly 
because  the  central  current  of  the  will,  which  controls 
the  reshaping,  is  proportionately  stronger  and  more 
rapid  in  springing  to  a  position  of  control.  But  it  is 
also  partly  because  the  great  middle  group  of  instincts 
which  we  have  called  the  general  instincts  are  more 
general,  so  that  there  is  more  work  to  be  done  to  fit 
them  to  specific  circumstances. 

No  creature  can  engage  in  food-getting-in-general: 
it  must  get  particular  items  of  food  in  particular 
w^ays.  Even  the  most  definite  units  of  behavior,  as 
grasping,  biting,  are  generalities  needing  adjustment 
to  every  individual  task.  All  instincts,  then,  and 
especially  human  instincts,  have  to  be  brought  to  earth 
by  building  a  bridge  from  the  universal  to  the  par¬ 
ticular.  The  human  being,  so  far  as  his  original 
impulses  are  guiding  him,  is  in  the  position  of  an 
agent  under  such  widely  general  orders  that  he  is 
allowed,  and  obliged,  to  use  a  liberal  ^ discretion.^  It 
is  in  this  gap  between  the  broad  thrust  of  instinct  and 
the  particular  emergency  that  ‘intelligence’  finds  its 
first  employment. 


152 


EXPERIENCE 


When  I  say  that  intelligence — i.e.,  the  idea  of  a  total 
end  regulating  the  ways  and  means  to  its  fulfilment — 
spans  this  gap,  I  do  not  mean  that  it  acts  unaided. 
Nature  does  not  fail  to  make  specific  suggestions  in 
specific  situations :  in  every  circumstance  there  must, 
of  course,  be  some  nervous  route  of  least  resistance. 
Nature  may  produce  a  veritable  magazine  of  handy 
responses,  which  may  be  run  through  more  or  less 
mechanically  until  some  one  suits  the  emergency,  as 
in  the  case  of  an  animal  seeking  to  escape  from  a  trap. 
But  the  significant  thing  is  that  Nature  herself  draws 
the  distinction  between  these  suggestions  and  the 
major  instinct:  they  are  alterable,  loosely  attached, 
while  the  general  instinct  remains  controlling  the 
alterations.  The  law  seems  to  hold  for  human  nature 
that  the  more  specific  the  suggestion,  the  more  alter¬ 
able  it  is. 

Take,  for  example,  an  instinct  to  fly  from  danger — 
a  highly  general  instinct.  No  highly  developed 
creature  is  endowed  with  such  an  instinct  without 
numerous  auxiliary  responses.  When  a  special  sign 
indicates  a  special  danger — a  loud  noise,  a  ^^arge 
object  coming  rapidly  toward  one’’ — nature  has  one  or 
more  proposals  to  make,  also  comparatively  specific — 
to  shrink,  to  retire,  to  get  closer  to  companions,  to  call 
out,  to  hide.  But  it  is  just  these  special  signs  (stimuli) 
and  special  suggestions  (responses)  which  are  modi¬ 
fiable.^  Thus,  birds  which  by  impulse  take  to  flight  at 

1  McDougall  holds  that  it  is  the  emotional  core  of  the  instinct  which 
persists,  while  the  two  termini,  the  afferent  and  efferent  channels,  are 
subject  to  modification.  But  what  persists  is  more  than  an  emotion; 
it  is  the  entire  general  tendency.  As  the  instincts  which  McDougall 


THE  TASK  OF  EXPEEIENCE 


153 


any  loud  noise  may  learn  to  sit  throngh  the  passage 
of  a  railway  train;  while  the  mere  sight  of  a  man  on 
foot  will  scatter  them.  The  former  special  stimulus 
has  ceased  to  have  the  general  meaning  ^danger’;  the 
latter  special  stimulus  has  acquired  that  general 
meaning.  A  rabbit  at  large  when  alarmed  will  make 
for  its  burrow;  in  captivity,  it  will  make  for  its  box 
or  kennel.  The  general  meaning,  ^ escape,^  can  no 
longer  take  the  former  special  route — the  natural  way ; 
the  latter  response  has  acquired  that  meaning.  In 
such  modifications  of  stimulus  or  response,  or  both, 
consists  the  education  or  self-education  of  the  animal : 
they  are  the  work  of  ‘intelligence,’  so  far  as  they  are 
guided  by  the  persisting  idea  of  the  general  end,  that 
is  to  say,  by  a  mind  or  self;  we  call  them,  also,  the 
results  of  ‘  experience ’—understanding,  however,  that 
apart  from  the  ‘intelligence’  the  experience  would 
mean  nothing,  and  therefore  accomplish  nothing. 

What  is  accomplished  is  usually  something  more, 
however,  than  a  fitting  of  a  particular  response  to  a 
particular  situation,  as  the  examples  given  will  show. 
For  the  new  stimuli  and  responses  that  are  brought 
under  the  general  instinct  are  themselves  general. 
The  bird  has  an  attitude  toward  ‘  walking  men  ’  which, 
though  far  more  specific  than  its  attitude  toward 
‘danger,’  is  still  a  general  attitude.  These  acquired 
generalities  we  call  Jiahits.  A  habit  might  indeed  be 
fairly  described  as  an  acquired  (and  usually  compara- 

enumerates  are  themselves  highly  general,  I  should  not  hesitate  to  pro¬ 
pose  that  it  is  they,  in  their  entirety,  which  persist,  while  the  modifica¬ 
tion  affects  mainly  such  particularized  channels  as  form  the  main  object 
of  Professor  Thorndike’s  studies. 


154 


EXPEKIENCE 


lively  specific)  instinct."  It  is  wliat  experience 
deposits  when  the  mind  has  played  long  enough  with 
a  situation  that  is  bound  to  recur;  has  played  long 
enough,  that  is,  with  its  repertoire  of  responses  and 
its  own  inventions,  to  adopt  a  general  method  as  best, 
and  to  turn  its  experience-interest  to  other  situations. 

Thus  ^experience’  moves  through  the  growth  of  our 
natural  impulses  like  a  reaper’s  swath, — concerned  at 
every  point  with  the  particular  instance,  while  having 
before  it  and  leaving  behind  it  only  the  masses  and 
bundles  of  grain,  generalities  of  higher  and  lower  level. 
The  result  of  this  reaping  of  experience  is  that  nothing 
is  left  standing  in  its  original  relation  to  Mother 
Earth.  Everything  is  now  brought  into  relation  to 
the  purposes  of  the  reaper.  No  natural  impulse  can 
become  a  matter  of  experience  and  remain  unchanged. 
What  we  call  memory  implies  that  every  new  stimulus 
will  be  invested  with  all  the  meaning  of  what  followed 
at  the  previous  ventures.  Every  new  effort  is  normally 

2  As  a  connection  between  stimulus  and  response,  habit  has,  as 
Watson  justly  remarks,  the  same  structure  as  instinct.  It  is  not  impos¬ 
sible  that  instincts  may  have  originated  to  some  extent  through  such 
deposits.  But  it  is  an  error  to  hold  that  there  is  no  essential  difference 
between  them  (Watson,  Behavior,  p.  185).  Habit  differs  from  instinct 
in  its  relation  to  the  higher  centers.  Since  habit  is  not  flung  off,  so  to 
speak,  as  a  full-blown  bubble,  until  the  self  is  satisfied,  or, — ^let  me  say, — 
since  habit  is  never  even  relatively  finished,  until  attention  is  relatively 
turned  to  other  sequences,  a  habit  is  controlled  by  a  central  awareness 
of  the  meaning  of  its  sequence  as  an  instinct  is  not  controlled.  An 
instinct,  w'e  may  say,  turns  into  habit  just  in  proportion  as  it  yields  up 
to  consciousness  the  secret  of  its  destination.  So.  far  as  action  is 
instinctive,  consciousness  is  increasingly  aware  of  the  articulation  of 
parts  into  a  total  sequence;  so  far  as  it  is  habitual,  the  awareness  of 
elements  is  on  the  decline,  and  the  centers  are  dealing  with  the  complex 
whole  as  a  simple  entity,  whose  meaning  is  sufficiently  grasped. 


THE  TASK  OF  EXPERIENCE 


155 


more  my  own  than  any  previons  effort.  And  if  a  mind 
is  eqnipped  like  the  hnman  mind  with  vigorous  im¬ 
pulses  of  curiosity  and  play,  the  most  favorable  result 
of  any  item  of  behavior  will  not  preserve  the  next 
following  cases  of  the  kind  from  experimental  varia¬ 
tion,  though  it  were  always  for  the  worse. 

But  we  must  now  look  more  particularly  at  the 
methods  by  which  experience  works  in  transforming 
instinct. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 


THE  METHODS  OF  EXPERIENCE 

WHEN  we  picture  to  ourselves  experience  as  an 
active  agency,  working  upon  a  passive  and 
malleable  mind,  we  think  of  it  as  wielding  the  tools  of 
pleasure  and  pain.  These  tools  are  universal,  fateful, 
and  imperative, — especially  pain:  no  man  can  ignore 
them,  and  especially,  no  child.  And  the  figure  of 
passivity  has  its  degree  of  justice.  I  may  launch  what 
ventures  I  will:  I  cannot  decide  in  advance  whether 
the  outcome  shall  he  agreeable  or  the  reverse.  Here 
I  am  at  the  mercy  of  the  world,  and  of  my  own 
constitution.^ 

And  the  general  method  of  experience  is  not  a 
secret.  Whatever  experiment  of  mine  results  in 
pleasure  will  be  confirmed,  and  its  occasion  will  be 
sought  again.  Whatever  experiment  results  in  pain 
will  tend  to  be  checked  or  much  modified  at  its  next 
suggestion.  Pleasure  heightens  the  rate  and  energy 
of  experimenting,  and  so  tends  to  increase  the  total 
volume  of  experience.  It  leads  the  will  out,  supplies 
it  with  information  of  what  there  is  to  live  for,  and 

1  To  experience  is  to  experiment  and  to  read  the  returns  of  experi¬ 
mentation.  Experimenting  is  an  active  element;  also  mounting  the 
results.  But  if  experimenting  were  sufficient  to  determine  the  results 
themselves,  as  certain  forms  of  idealism  suggest,  experiment  would  lose 
its  meaning. 


THE  METHODS  OF  EXPEKIENCE  157 

increases  the  likelihood  that  new  types  of  pleasure 
will  be  found.  Pleasure  is  thus  a  type  of  experience 
which  favors  its  own  growth,  and  so  becomes  the  sub¬ 
stance  with  which  ‘life^  does,  or  normally  should,  fill 
up.  Of  pain,  in  general,  the  reverse  is  true.  Prob¬ 
ably  some  retrospective  alteration  of  the  nervous 
channel  is  being  effected  during  the  experience  of  pain 
itself,  tending  to  occlude  the  channel,  as  the  physio¬ 
logical  side  of  that  experience. 

But  what  this  change  is  and  how  far  back  it  reaches 
cannot  be  put  down  in  any  simple  general  proposition. 
It  depends  in  the  first  place  upon  the  mmd  that  expe¬ 
riences  the  pain.  The  burnt  animal,  generally  speak¬ 
ing,  dreads  the  fire,  and  avoids  it.  But  it  is  not  true 
that  the  burnt  moth  ceases  to  approach  the  flame,  nor 
either  that  the  traditional  burnt  child  refrains  from 
further  experiments.  The  phototropism  of  the  moth 
persists;  the  interest  of  the  child  persists  likewise. 
The  child  has  connected  the  image  of  the  flame  with 
the  experience  of  being  burnt ;  the  moth  has  not.  But 
beyond  this  quasi-mechanical  linkage,  with  its  inhibit¬ 
ing  force,  the  child  recognizes  in  its  own  approach  to 
the  flame  differences  of  degree,  of  rapidity,  of  route; 
and  this  recognition  is  a  controlling  factor  in  what  its 
experience  means  to  it.  In  an  animal  intermediate 
between  moth  and  man  the  effect  of  the  burning  might 
be  a  blank  and  absolute  negative  toward  all  flames. 
For  the  human  being  there  are  no  such  negatives: — 
there  are  acquired  cautions  and  discriminations.  Such 
experience,  in  brief,  drives  a  human  being  to  ^ think.’ 

Such  thinking  is  still,  like  the  first  exercise  of  intel- 


158 


'  EXPEKIENCE 


ligence,  a  subsuming  of  means  under  ends ;  but  here  it 
takes  the  direction  of  analyzing,  and  making  hypoth¬ 
eses, — i.e.,  of  induction.  In  the  result  it  will,  if  it  can, 
so  modify  its  plan  of  action  as  both  to  gain  the  good 
and  avoid  the  evil.  There  is  at  once  a  beginning  of 
science,  and  of  the  economic  virtues. 

But  the  nature  of  the  change  produced  by  experience 
depends,  in  the  second  place,  upon  the  hind  of  pain  (or 
pleasure) — for  different  kinds  of  disagreeable  expe¬ 
rience  give  different  kinds  of  thrust  to  the  mind. 
While  it  is  true  that  every  outcome  of  an  experiment 
must  be  either  favorable  or  unfavorable,  and  that  we 
may  call  all  favorable  results  pleasurable  and  all 
unfavorable  results  painful,  the  names  pleasure  and 
pain  are  so  restricted  in  what  they  directly  bring 
before  our  thought  that  they  give  no  adequate  idea 
of  the  working  of  experience.  ^Experience’  works  in 
different  ways  according  as  the  agreeable  or  disagree¬ 
able  results  are  of  one  variety  or  another :  it  will  be  in 
the  interest  of  clearness,  therefore,  to  make  a  few 
simple  distinctions  in  the  kind  of  result  we  have  to 
deal  with. 

1.  Definite  sense  experiences , — pleasures  and  pains 
in  the  primary  sense,  together  with  other  ‘‘original 
satisfiers  and  annoyers”  of  which  Professor  Thorn¬ 
dike  speaks,  such  as  bitter  tastes,  hindrances  of 
motion,  contact  with  objects  of  aversion  or  disgust.^ 

The  relation  of  any  such  sensible  annoyer  to  the 
course  of  action  is  a  purely  empirical  fact.  Nature 
might  have  made  flame,  so  far  as  the  child’s  insight 

2  The  Original  Nature  of  Man,  pp.  123  ff. 


THE  METHODS  OF  EXPEKIEJTCE  159 

goes,  as  innocuous  as  incense.  It  might  have  made 
those  unpalatable  lady-bugs  pecked  at  by  Llo^^d 
Morgan’s  deservedly  noted  chicks  as  sweet  as  corn. 
The  attribute  has  to  be  learned  as  a  fact,  by  the  method 
of  contiguity.  It  is  imperative  that  objects  of  the 
attractive  hut  dangerous  class  should  thereafter  he 
divided  into  the  nocuous  and  the  innocuous,  and  dis¬ 
tinguished  by  signs:  the  fate  of  our  individual  may 
depend  on  success  in  finding  such  a  sign.  But  the 
imperative  is  categorical  in  the  sense  that  it  offers 
no  reasons  for  its  existence. 

2.  General  depression  or  elation.  Every  vital 
sequence  has  its  bodily  reverberation  as  well  as  its 
sensible  contents.  A  general  sense  of  physical  well¬ 
being  or  the  reverse  may  accompany  the  end  of  a 
course  of  behavior,  or  may  come  as  an  after-effect 
more  or  less  belated.  This  coenesthetic  condition  may 
he  of  the  same  quality  as  the  sensible  result  of  the 
behavior,  but  it  may  also  be  of  opposite  quality,  as  in 
the  disagreeable  after-clap  of  an  agreeable  indulgence. 

To  bring  these  vaguer  physical  experiences  into 
connection  with  the  original  impulse  and  its  direct 
pleasures  and  pains  requires  some  mental  span,  espe¬ 
cially  when  they  are  of  contrary  quality.  Thus,  after 
any  strenuous  exertion  there  normally  follows  the 
depression  of  fatigue ;  yet  if  the  direct  sensible  results 
of  the  effort  have  been  pleasant,  fatigue  seems  to  have 
no  tendency  to  alter  the  sequence.  In  primitive  self- 
consciousness,  the  flux  of  bodily  conditions  is  taken 
for  granted.  The  same  is  true  in  even  greater  measure 
of  the  remoter  after-effects.  Our  orgiastic  ancestors 


160 


EXPEEIENCE 


presumably  suffered  from  their  excesses  more  or  less 
as  we  do ;  yet  there  are  few  signs  that  they  habitually 
put  two  and  two  together.  But  when  the  causal  con¬ 
nection  is  observed,  and  the  enjoyment  (for  example) 
is  recognized  as  a  deceitful  enjoyment,  there  will  be 
some  modification  of  the  next  response  to  that  invita¬ 
tion,  whether  or  not  the  response  is  inhibited.  And 
further,  there  will  be  a  degree  of  insight  into  the 
meaning  of  this  connection  of  effect  with  cause;  for 
the  beginning  of  seeing  why  a  given  cause  should  have 
a  given  effect,  is  the  condition  of  seeing  that  there  is 
any  causal  connection  at  all.  Hence  the  modification 
that  takes  place  will  not  be  a  wholly  random  one,  but 
will  take  the  direction  of  escaping  that  particular 
logical  sequence. 

3.  Mental  after-image.  Distinct  from  all  periph¬ 
eral  consequences  of  a  sequence  is  a  central  comment 
which  may  be  subconscious  or  distinct,  but  is  probably 
always  present  in  the  human  being.  It  is  most 
noticeable,  naturally  enough,  when  it  is  contrary  in 
quality  to  either  the  sensible  result  or  the  general 
bodily  condition;  as  when  one  succeeds  in  a  competi¬ 
tion  and  finds  himself  somehow  dissatisfied  with  his 
success,  or  as  when  one  fails,  and  finds  himself  at 
peace  in  his  failure.  Such  a  mental  after-image  may 
appear  at  first  as  irrationally  connected  with  my 
experience  as  the  burning  with  the  candle-flame.  But 
it  differs  from  the  preceding  types  of  experience  in 
the  circumstance  that  the  comment  is  recognized  as 
being  not  nature’s  comment,  but  my  own.  There  is 
the  same  demand  as  before  for  analysis  and  induction ; 


THE  METHODS  OF  EXPEKIE^TCE  161 

but  this  time  I  am  required  to  understand.  This  kind 
of  experience  has  such  a  crucial  bearing  upon  the 
process  of  revising  my  behavior  that  we  must  illustrate 
it  in  greater  detail. 

I  have  a  disobedient  child ;  and  upon  an  accumulation 
of  petty  refusals  to  obey,  I  act  upon  the  advice  of  a 
contemporary  sage,  ‘‘Never  punish  a  child  except  in 
anger.’’  I  secure  attention  and  compliance,  and  leave 
a  fairly  permanent  impression;  I  go  away  satisfied. 
I  suffer  from  no  physical  depression.  But  in  time, 
perhaps,  my  sense  of  triumph  abates,  or  becomes 
obscured  by  a  counter  uneasiness.  And  when  I  analyze 
the  experience,  I  find  that  it  refers  to  a  defect  in  my 
achievement:  I  gained  what  I  defined  for  myself, — 
namely,  compliance;  but  obedience  I  have  not  gained. 
When  I  gave  rein  to  the  pugnacious  behavior,  my  will 
had  defined  its  object  as  the  destruction  of  a  state  of 
mind  too  little  impressed  with  the  importance  of  my 
own.  But  I  have  not  conveyed  to  my  child  any  positive 
conviction  on  that  point,  and  so  I  have  gained  no 
genuine  authority.  My  strategy  has  been  in  some 
measure  self-defeating.  The  mental  after-image  of 
my  result  is  a  negative  after-image. 

Such  an  after-image  may  have  sufficient  potency  to 
reverse  the  judgment  of  the  other  types  of  experience. 
No  one  can  engage  in  a  brisk  fight  without  incurring 
much  physical  pain,  and  experiencing  subsequent 
depression;  yet  these  circumstances  are  not  in  the 
least  competent  to  deter  an  enthusiastic  fighter.  It 
would  be  false  psychology  to  explain  this  as  a  matter 
of  the  balance  of  pleasure  over  pain;  it  is  a  question 


162 


EXPERIENCE 


of  the  positive  after-image.  The  pursuit  of  pleasure 
among  young  people  is  still  more  or  less  orgiastic  and 
physically  expensive;  yet  so  long  as  the  mental  after¬ 
images  are  favorable,  the  efforts  and  depressions  are 
judged  worth  the  cost.  If  they  become  unfavorable, 
the  degree  of  pleasure  does  not  save  them.  We  incline 
to  estimate  the  human  worth  of  a  woman  by  the  degree 
of  the  deterrent  effect  which  the  pain  of  childbirth  may 
have  upon  her.  By  all  the  laws  of  effect,  if  pleasure 
and  pain  were  the  controlling  factors,  the  first  child 
should  commonly  be  the  last.  It  is  the  mental  after¬ 
image  which  normally  determines  the  destiny  of  that 
instinctive  sequence.  In  fact,  there  are  few  of  the 
vital  experiences  of  humanity  that  do  not  entail  a 
weight  of  pain  and  labor  such  as  does  in  fact  deter 
those  in  whom  prudence  is  the  highest  virtue.  And  I 
do  not  ignore  the  fact  that  the  mental  after-image 
varies  markedly  with  one’s  general  theory  of  the 
universe.  But  I  am  here  pointing  out  simply  a  law 
of  human  nature  as  a  fact  to  be  reckoned  with:  it  is 
the  mental  after-image  which  determines  ivhether  a 
given  sequence  shall  he  confirmed  or  weakened,  and 
how  it  shall  he  modified.  If  the  after-image  is  positive, 
any  discomfort  is  prevented  from  eating  into  the 
allurement  of  the  stimulus ;  if  it  is  negative,  any 
delight  is  prevented  from  enhancing  it. 

The  nature  of  this  after-image  should  be  evident 
from  our  previous  discussion.  It  is  the  reaction  of 
the  whole  will  upon  the  partial  impulse,  when  the  full 
meaning  of  that  impulse  is  perceived  in  the  light  of 
its  results.  It  is  not  necessarily  a  moral  reaction, 


THE  METHODS  OF  EXPEKIENCE 


163 


remorse,  shame,  sesthetic  revolt,  etc.,  are  its  clarified 
varieties.  Its  significance  may  simply  be,  ^^This  is,  or 
is  not,  what  on  the  whole  I  want’^;  was  a  fooP’; 

hit  it  right.’’  In  the  unfinished  condition  of  onr 
instincts  (and  the  slightness  of  our  experience)  every 
course  of  action  is  launched  more  or  less  hypotheti¬ 
cally.  It  is  my  theory,  as  I  make  my  decision,  that 
this  is  what  I  want  to  do ;  yet  I  am  aware  that  there  is 
some  doubt  about  it,  and  that  I  shall  not  be  sure  until 
the  returns  are  all  in.  The  mental  after-image  is  the 
answer  to  the  question  involved  in  this  tentative  state 
of  mind. 

If  the  after-image  is  negative,  the  natural  result  will 
be  a  new  hypothesis  for  dealing  with  a  similar 
situation.  And  the  transformation  of  instinct,  under 
experience,  consists  essentially  in  the  series  of  hy¬ 
potheses  which  a  given  mind  adopts, — hypotheses 
about  the  ways  in  which  impulses  are  to  be  followed 
in  order  to  satisfy  the  complete  will.  This  being  the 
case,  it  is  evident  that  the  series  of  these  successive 
transformations  must  approach,  as  a  goal,  an  inter¬ 
pretation  of  the  impulse  in  question  in  terms  of  the 
individual’s  own  variety  of  the  will-to-power.  And 
inasmuch  as  each  successive  hypothesis  is  built  on  the 
error  of  the  preceding  one,  the  process  might  well  be 
called,  in  analogy  with  Plato’s  method  of  finding  true 
ideas,  a  dialectical  process.  The  work  of  experience 
is  the  dialectic  of  the  will. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 


THE  DIALECTIC  OF  PUGNACITY 

WE  have  frequently  referred  to  the  effect  of 
experience  upon  the  instinct  of  pugnacity.  I 
have  been  somewhat  deliberate  about  this;  for  I  take 
it  that  pugnacity  is  one  of  the  impulses  which  we  par¬ 
ticularly  at  the  present  moment  in  history  have  need 
to  understand.  Let  me,  then,  illustrate  my  view  of 
the  dialectic  of  the  will  by  a  series  of  transformations 
of  pugnacity  which  may  represent,  somewhat  symboli¬ 
cally,  the  experience  of  the  race  up  to  a  certain  point. 

In  its  original  and  crudest  form,  pugnacity  makes 
for  the  simple  and  radical  destruction  of  its  object. 
This  is  what  it  ^  means.  ^  If  this  impulse  appears  in 
a  mind  which  is  incapable  of  any  social  interest  in  its 
object,  the  slaying  of  the  opponent  may  he  an  entirely 
satisfactory  result.  The  mental  after-image  may  be 
positive. 

But  in  most  of  the  higher  animals  this  is  not  the 
case.  Destruction  brings,  as  we  have  noted,  a  degree 
of  defeat  of  one^s  total  wish;  there  is  at  least  enough 
interest  in  the  survival  of  the  opposed  mind  so  that 
its  chagrin,  its  acknowledgment  of  the  victor,  has  a 
value.  The  hypothesis,  ‘  ‘  I  want  destruction,  ’  ’  changes 
into  the  hypothesis,  ‘H  rev e^ige/^  Shand  has 

collected  a  number  of  instances  in  which  animals  have 


THE  DIALECTIC  OF  PUGNACITY  165 

with  apparent  deliberation  refrained  from  destroying 
in  order  to  take  satisfaction  in  the  suffering  or  dis¬ 
comfiture  of  the  enemy.  I  wish  to  point  out  that  this 
revision  takes  place  quite  in  independence  of  any 
social  constraint  upon  the  fighting  impulse. 

Though  the  successive  interpretations  of  pugnacity 
are  likely  to  retain  their  hold  in  certain  relations 
while  showing  their  defects  in  others,  yet  revenge,  like 
destruction,  tends  to  invade  every  relation  of  life. 
Within  members  of  any  given  group  when  murder  is 
recognized  as  undesirable,  wrath  is  likely  to  take 
everywhere  the  form  of  revenge,  whether  in  the  ‘tit  for 
tat’  of  children,  or  in  the  petulant  relations  of  parents 
and  offspring,  or  in  the  more  deliberate  and  vindictive 
eye-for-eye  quarrels  among  adults.  Eevenge  has, 
however,  an  inherent  inconsistency  of  motive  which  is 
bound  to  produce,  in  the  regions  of  denser  sociability, 
a  further  revision  of  hypothesis. 

For  while  revenge  aims  to  leave  such  injury  as  to 
exclude  the  restoration  of  amicable  feelings,  and 
indeed,  to  gloat  in  the  persistence  of  hatred  and  con¬ 
tempt,  one  has  need  of  the  presence  of  the  despised 
and  defeated  adversary  as  a  source  of  this  satisfaction ; 
revenge  squints  toward  the  maintenance  of  friendli¬ 
ness.  The  solving  of  this  puzzle  turns  revenge  into 
punishment,  which  is  the  next  stage  of  the  developing 
perception  of  what  pugnacity  means. 

Punishment  aims  at  inflicting  pain,  but  without 
permanent  injury.  The  anatomy  of  the  infant  verte¬ 
brate  commonly  lends  itself  to  this  interpretation ;  and 
some  of  the  animals,  elephants  at  least,  have  acquired 


166 


EXPERIENCE 


the  same  technique  of  punishment  as  prevails  with 
human  parents.  Punishment  makes  a  discrimination 
between  the  evil  of  a  will  and  its  essential  nature,  just 
as  revenge  made  a  distinction  between  the  will  and 
the  life.  Punishment  is  an  interpretation  of  pugnacity 
as  meaning  the  elimination  of  an  evil  element  in  the 
will  of  another  while  retaining  the  integrity  of,  and 
the  regard  for,  that  will  as  a  whole.  Punishment 
intends  to  reinstate  the  original  amity  of  the  disturbed 
relationship. 

When  this  discrimination  has  once  been  made,  it  is ' 
not  a  long  step  to  a  direct  aim  at  the  restoration  of 
the  integrity  of  that  will,  and  a  subordination  of  the 
effort  to  do  justice  to  the  defect.  It  may  be  an 
empirical  discovery  at  first,  that  a  soft  answer  may 
in  some  cases  satisfy  the  whole  aim  of  punishment, 
and  have  the  further  advantage  of  avoiding  the  bitter¬ 
ness  of  humiliating  memory.  It  matters  not  how  the 
hypothesis  was  arrived  at;  so  long  as  punishment  left 
in  some  relations  a  negative  after-image,  this  revision 
was  bound  to  be  hit  upon  sooner  or  later.  This  com¬ 
plete  suppression  of  the  destructive  behavior  in  the 
interest  of  a  resolute  kindliness  may  not  be  the  last 
word  in  the  development  of  the  pugnacious  impulse: 
we  shall  have  some  further  enquiry  to  make  on  this 
point.^  But  it  is  one  of  the  views  to  which  experience 
leads. 

And  my  point  is  that  experience,  given  the  human 
mind  to  work  upon,  would  be  likely  to  lead  to  this 
stage,  quite  apart  from  the  disciplinary  action  of 

1  Chapters  XLI,  XXXI,  XXXII,  XXVIII. 


THE  DIALECTIC  OF  PUGNACITY  167 

society,  and  quite  apart  from  the  teachings  of  religion, 
simply  because  the  prior  interpretations  of  the  anger- 
impulse  are  not  what  the  human  being,  on  the  whole, 
wants.  I  am  intentionally  omitting  all  reference  to 
the  contributions  which  various  types  of  social  pres¬ 
sure,  economic,  political,  and  others,  make  to  this 
result.  It  is  far  from  my  purpose  to  ignore  or 
minimize  the  extent  of  these  contributions.  I  have 
excluded  them  here,  because  I  intend  to  speak  of  them 
by  themselves ;  and  because  we  are  interested  here  in 
finding  a  method  of  testing  whether  social  trans¬ 
formations  tend  to  distort  human  nature,  and  to 
carry  it  in  directions  which  of  its  own  momentum  it 
would  not  follow.  So  far  as  pugnacity  is  concerned, 
my  judgment  is, — from  the  considerations  here  put 
down, — that  this  proposition  is  untrue.  The  dominant 
trend  of  the  human  will  is,  at  least  roughly,  parallel 
with  the  demands  made  upon  it  by  society. 

In  a  complete  treatise  each  of  the  major  general 
instincts  should  be  examined  for  its  natural  dialectic. 
I  must  be  content  at  present  to  indicate  a  method  of 
work;  and  in  a  later  section  to  sketch  some  of  the 
tendencies  in  other  instincts. 


PART  V 


SOCIETY 


J 


\ 


.  i. 

1 


jj 


CHAPTER  XXV 


SOCIAL  MODELLING 

IF  human  instincts,  left  to  the  teachings  of  expe¬ 
rience,  would  grow  very  much  as  society  tries  to 
model  them,  why  not  leave  them  more  completely  to 
their  own  growth?  Our  result  so  far  supplies  a  good 
argument  for  greater  freedom  from  social  constraint, 
if  not  for  anarchy.  Social  interference  with  natural 
growth  is  based,  we  know,  upon  a  degree  of  distrust 
of  human  nature:  and  when  we  perceive  that  human 
nature  has  its  own  inward  righting-tendency,  its 
^dialectic,’  the  distrust  seems  unjustified:  social 
modelling  appears  as  an  elaborate  social  meddling. 

Attempts  to  steady  an  ark  that  will  steady  itself  are 
worse  than  unnecessary:  they  prevent  the  finding  of 
real  reasons  for  preferring  one  mode  of  behavior  to 
another.  The  social  reason  is  always  at  one  remove 
from  the  real  reason,  vitiated  as  it  is  by  all  the 
motives  that  play  for  or  against  conformity.^  And 
further,  so  far  as  society  loses  the  invaluable  guidance 
of  that  still,  small  voice,  the  mental  after-image,  which 
governs  growth,  how  can  we  be  assured  that  its  trans¬ 
formations  shall,  in  the  main,  be  other  than  deforma¬ 
tions?  Working,  as  society  does,  through  ^sanctions,’ 

1  Cf.  Holt,  The  Freudian  Wish;  Herbert  Spencer,  Education,  etc., 
for  expressions  of  this  ideal. 


172 


/ 


SOCIETY 


that  is,  through  artificial  pressures  of  reward  and 
punishment,  the  amount  of  such  pressure  may  be  an 
index  of  the  amount  of  warping  which  nature  is  likely 
to  suffer  under  its  control. 

The  tabus  under  which  we  now  live  are  indeed  but 
phantoms  of  the  ferocities  which  helped  to  create  the 
first  ^ cakes  of  custom.’  Consequently  we  cannot  point 
to  any  such  mutilations  or  immolations  of  nature,  such 
head-huntings  or  widow-burnings,  such  foot-bindings 
or  soul-bindings,  as  cumber  to  satiety  the  annals  of  the 
folkways.  Personal  liberty  has  won  many  battles ;  but 
is  its  work  complete?  If  such  natural  expressions  as 
laughter  and  tears,  coughing  and  sneezing,  are  still 
subject  to  social  regulation,  what  shall  be  said  of  the 
course  of  our  deeper  impulses,  our  antipathies,  our 
affections,  our  fears?  Society  is  not  precisely  hostile 
to  our  passions  any  more  than  it  is  hostile  to  our 
sneezing;  but  it  asserts  jurisdiction  over  the  ways 
and  methods  of  each.  And  it  makes  these  ways  and 
means  so  much  the  essence  of  the  agreement  that 
unless  the  impulse  can  be  satisfied  in  the  prescribed 
way,  society  inclines  to  demand  that  it  shall  not  be 
satisfied  at  all.  There  are  approved  ways  of  earning, 
a  living,  as  there  are  approved  ways  of  winning  a 
bride,  but  who  can  recognize  under  the  activities  of 
shop  and  factory  and  office  an  expression  of  natural 
impulses  to  hunt,  to  fish,  to  gather  where  one  has  not 
strewn?  In  its  ways  of  food-getting,  civilization  has 
listened  to  advisers  more  imperious  than  instinct;  yet 
it  insists  that  unless  one  follow  these  ways,  he  shall 
not  have  a  man’s  living  at  all. 


SOCIAL  MODELLING 


173 


As  for  the  weapons  which  produce  conformity,  if 
the  social  lash  has  lost  its  barbarity,  it  has  not  lost 
its  sting.  Fears  of  death  and  beyond-death  are 
seldom  invoked ;  yet  the  fears  which  spring  from 
ambition  and  from  multiform  social  attachments  and 
dependences  are  hardly  less  powerful.  Man’s  need 
of  his  fellows  is  so  great,  and  increasingly  great,  that 
he  will  not  willingly  forfeit  a  large  measure  of  their 
favor.  Beside  this,  the  knowledge  and  dread  of  our 
own  ignorance  in  the  management  of  life  can  be 
counted  upon  to  herd  the  mass  of  mankind  into  the 
beaten  path,  while  ease,  certainty,  and  the  feeling  of 
at-homeness  serve  to  keep  them  there.  For  the  more 
adventurous  spirits,  the  finer  but  not  less  terrifying 
punishments  of  ridicule  and  exclusion  are  held  in 
reserve.  Hence  ^convention’  is  a  word  which  still 
conveys  a  sense  of  enforced  deviation  from  the  natural. 
What  society  imagines  it  wants  imposes  itself  upon 
what  I  want,  and  buries  it. 

Our  attitude  toward  convention  is  for  the  most  part 
not  only  docile,  but  unreasoning.  The  modelling 
process,  working  by  suggestion  and  imitation  as  well 
as  by  overt  control,  has  done  its  work  before  the 
critical  powers  are  fully  awake.  To  many  minds,  it 
is  something  of  a  recommendation  of  usage  that  we 
hold  to  it,  as  to  a  religious  mystery,  with  the  blind 
adherence  of  faith.  Yet  we  are  destined  to  reach  self- 
conscious  judgment  in  these  matters  as  in  all  others. 
We  cannot  hold  a  custom  against  reason,  when  once 
reason  has  become  competent  to  deal  with  it.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  would  be  a  questionable  procedure  to 


174 


SOCIETY 


argue  from  the  general  unreasoning  acceptance  of  any 
social  habit  or  belief  that  there  are  no  reasons  for  it. 
While  we  are  bound  to  challenge  whatever  we  can  see 
to  be  unnatural  or  outworn,  yet  so  deep  are  the  roots 
of  convention  that  most  customs  and  prejudices 
deserve  a  second  glance — he  takes  great  risks  who 
denies  to  any  of  them  a  meaning. 

To  take  one  example  from  among  many,  I  find  this 
risk  too  lightly  run  in  a  recent  chapter  by  that  always 
informing  and  vigorous  thinker.  Professor  E.  A.  Eoss. 
He  is  dealing  mth  a  number  of  conventional  beliefs 
which  modify  behavior.^  He  cites,  among  others,  the 
belief  ^‘that  manual  labor  is  degrading,’’  a  belief  less 
surprising  among  the  upper  castes,  who  profit  by  it  than 
among  manual  laborers  themselves.  Yet  these  latter 
also  give  it  an  unreasoned  acceptance,  thinks  Pro¬ 
fessor  Eoss,  as  seen  in  their  ambitions  for  themselves 
and  their  children  to  escape  from  the  ranks  of  toil  into 
the  ranks  of  the  long-nailed  mandarins.  But  why 
translate  this  conventional  direction  of  ambition,  so 
far  as  it  is  an  article  of  faith  rather  than  a  desire  for 
greater  income,  as  a  belief  that  manual  labor  is 
degrading!  Why  not  recognize  in  it  a  highly  reason¬ 
able  belief  that  a  man  should  by  all  means  have  a 
mental  survey  of  his  own  work,  and  that  the  particular 
kind  of  manual  labor  which  is  robbed  of  all  mental 
interest  is  degrading.  There  is  a  false  note  in  the 
desire  to  get  away  from  toil;  but  beside  it  is  a  deep 
and  true  note  in  the  desire  to  live,  as  man  was  made 
to  live,  by  a  union  of  toil  with  wit.  As  a  second  mean- 

2  E.  A.  Eoss,  Social  Psychology,  ch.  vii. 


SOCIAL  MODELLING 


175 


ingless  convention,  our  author  mentions  the  belief  that 
‘‘pecuniary  success  is  the  only  success.’^  No  doubt 
society,  less  by  what  it  says  than  by  the  turn  of  its 
eyes,  instils  an  admiration  for  the  man  who  has  made 
his  fortune.  This  value-attitude,  if  not  exclusive 
among  us,  is  certainly  overdeveloped;  but  can  we  say 
that  it  is  essentially  unreasonable?  If  command  of 
the  fruits  of  the  earth  is  the  normal  and  destined 
position  for  man,  why  should  one  who  has  achieved 
such  a  position,  and  in  so  doing  has  shown  large 
powers  of  one  kind  or  another,  not  receive  the  recog¬ 
nition  that  he,  in  so  far,  has  succeeded!  It  is  a  man’s 
work  to  make  a  fortune,  and  under  normal  circum¬ 
stances  a  measure  of  ability.  It  is  not  the  only  kind 
of  work  that  can  be  called  a  man’s  work,  but  it  is 
typical.  It  has  the  appeal  that  the  qualities  it  calls 
out  can  be  understood  by  everybody.  We  must  define 
this  convention  rather  by  the  values  it  justly  appre¬ 
ciates,  if  there  are  any  such,  than  by  its  myopic 
aberrations,  its  exclusion  of  other  values.  And  unless 
we  are  prepared  to  deny  that  the  normal  result  of 
economic  effort,  the  mastery  of  nature,  is  a  good,  we 
must  expect  to  deal,  for  all  time,  with  a  disposition 
to  admire  the  man  who  has  become  “ruler  over  many 
things.”  Another  meaningless  convention,  according 
to  Eoss,  is  “that  the  consumption  of  stimulants  or 
narcotics  by  women  is  unwomanly.”  But  I  desist. 
There  are  few  prejudices  or  ceremonial  obseiwances 
for  which  the  users  are  entirely  ready  with  their 
reasons.  If  they  were,  these  elements  of  mental  usage 
would  forfeit  the  thought-saving  merits  of  custom. 


176 


SOCIETY 


But  if  we  forthwith  pronounce  an  observance  unrea¬ 
sonable  because  it  is  unreasoned,  we  forgo  all  possi¬ 
bility  of  penetrating  into  its  often  subtle  and  sub¬ 
conscious  grounds. 

Eebellion  we  have  always  with  us,  and  we  need  it. 
It  trims  the  dead  wood,  and  summons  latent  reasons 
into  the  open.  Of  the  rebellion  of  today,  it  is  perhaps 
significant  that  it  complains  less  of  the  common 
customs  of  the  tribe,  so  far  as  they  affect  the  majority, 
than  of  the  incidental  hardship  which  any  custom,  by 
its  uniformity,  may  work  in  special  cases.  Society 
tyrannizes  less  by  mistaking  the  conditions  for  the 
welfare  of  the  mass  of  men,  than  by  classifying 
individuals,  who  never  quite  fit  the  categories.^  We 
may  approach  our  enquiry,  then,  without  antecedent 
bias  either  hostile  to  convention  or  in'^  favor  of  it, 
simply  as  a  question  of  fact.  How  does  society  tend 
to  modify  individual  behavior? 

3  See,  for  example,  Elsie  Clews  Parsons,  Social  Freedom. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 


MAIN  DIRECTIONS  OF  SOCIAL 
MODELLINO 

For  the  sake  of  proportion,  our  first  duty  is  always 
to  the  obvious.  We  must  remind  ourselves  at 
the  outset  of  the  most  general  way  in  which  social 
rules  bear  upon  the  development  of  instinct.  Gener¬ 
ally  speaking,  then,  custom  continues  the  direction  of 
development  struck  out  by  individual  experience,  and 
facilitates  it. 

More  in  detail :  it  abbreviates  the  tedious  process  of 
learning  from  experience;  it  saves  from  experiments 
too  costly  for  the  individual, — such,  for  example,  as 
might  cost  him  his  life,  or  his  health;  it  speeds  the 
whole  process  of  interpretation,  through  its  own 
acquired  skill  in  imparting  its  maxims ;  and  on  account 
of  all  this  economy,  it  carries  the  process  farther  than 
personal  experimentation  could  hope  to  reach.  It  also 
preserves  a  common  direction  of  growth,  and  at  least 
a  minimum  level  of  achievement  in  a  great  number  of 
individuals.  Society  is  to  each  of  its  members  a  store¬ 
house  of  technique :  and  as  little  as  the  learner  could 
spare  the  mechanical  technique  of  the  socially  trans¬ 
mitted  arts  and  sciences,  could  he  dispense  with  the 
accumulated  capital  of  wisdom  in  the  ways  of  behavior, 
the  folkways  of  his  own  tribe  and  time.  That  is,  he 


178 


SOCIETY 


could  not  spare  them  if  what  we  call  ^progress’  is  to 
continue. 

To  say  that  social  action  continues  the  direction  of 
the  work  of  individual  experience  understates  the 
case :  it  continues  the  whole  work  of  organic  evolution. 
Let  me  mention  two  ways  in  which  this  continuation 
is  marked. 

1.  The  Vestibule  of  satisfaction’  is  prolonged. 
By  the  Vestibule’  of  a  satisfaction  I  mean  the  series 
of  preliminary  processes  which  lead  up  to  it.  Through¬ 
out  the  animal  series,  we  can  trace  a  growing  elabo¬ 
ration  of  instinctive  processes,  and  hence  a  prolonged 
period  of  suspense  between  the  first  stimulus  and  the 
final  satisfaction.  Consider  the  food-getting  pro¬ 
cesses,  and  the  satisfaction  of  eating.  An  amceba 
^  eats  ’  immediately  upon  contact  with  a  food-particle, — 
if  this  activity  of  surrounding  and  absorbing  may  he 
called  eating.  The  sea-anemone  has  to  observe  a 
preliminary  or  two :  it  must  use  its  tentacles  to  waft 
the  food-bearing  water  into  its  body-cavity.  When 
organs  of  smell  and  vision  exist,  they  imply  that  food 
(as  well  as  danger)  is  to  be  discerned  at  a  distance, 
and  usually  that  the  animal  thus  equipped  is  to  go  and 
get  it.  Organs  of  chase  and  combat  indicate  still  more 
elaborate  preliminaries;  with  hunting,  stalking,  and 
killing,  the  vestibule  is  prolonged  many  fold.  An 
instinct  to  lay  up  stores  for  winter  shows  that  a 
farther  step  has  been  taken  in  the  same  direction; 
and  all  this  is  accomplished  without  appealing  either 
to  experience  or  to  social  instruction.  Individual 
experience  not  only  retraces  the  phylogenetic  journey: 


DIRECTIONS  OF  MODELLING 


179 


it  carries  farther  the  interpolation  of  means  and 
conditions  in  the  form  of  labor  and  foresight  between 
hunger  and  consumption.  If  society,  then,  intercalates 
further  conditions  and  complexities,  it  is  but  exceeding 
Nature  at  her  own  game.  The  prolonging  of  the 
vestibule  goes  with  a  greater  reserve  of  tissue,  and 
a  finer  balancing  of  the  stimulus;  so  that  the  period 
of  suspense  is  not  more  than  the  organism  is  fitted  to 
sustain.  The  general  principle*  holds  good,  that  the 
farther  the  stimulus  is  from  the  satisfaction,  the  less 
its  intensity,  the  more  it  is  negligible,  and  therefore 
the  inconvenience  of  delay  or  even  of  ignoring  it  is 
negligible,  in  the  vital  economy. 

What  is  true  of  food-getting  is  obviously  true  like¬ 
wise  of  mating.  If  society  has  interposed  apparently 
artificial  conditions,  such  as  the  consent  of  the  partner, 
the  approval  of  a  social  representative,  a  ceremonial 
wedding,  it  is  but  embroidering  upon  the  theme  which 
Nature  had,  in  the  practices  of  quest  and  courtship, 
already  inserted  as  preliminaries  to  the  mating. 

This  conspiracy  of  all  the  phases  of  evolution  in 
prolonging  the  vestibule  of  satisfaction,  can  hardly 
be  looked  upon  as  an  end  in  itself,  from  the  biological 
standpoint,  though  it  implies  the  complication  and 
development  of  the  animal  body.  It  means  simply 
that  the  organism  is  fit  to  live  in  a  more  complex  and 
extended  environment,  in  which  the  time-factor  and 
the  ability  to  wait  are  highly  important  factors  in 
survival.  But  from  the  psychological  standpoint,  the 
scope  of  the  process,  and  the  fact  that  satisfaction  is 
hemmed  in  by  an  increasing  number  of  conditions. 


180 


SOCIETY 


imply  an  immense  development  of  the  meaning  of  each 
part  of  the  long  sequence,  together  with  enhanced 
powers  of  self-control  at  its  beginnings. 

2.  Limitation  of  the  range  of  objects  with  which 
one  deals.  The  protozoon  must  deal  with,  the  whole 
world  so  far  as  that  world  impinges  upon  it;  it  reacts 
to  everything  with  like  thoroughness  of  attention. 
The  same  organs  that  imply  a  lengthening  of  the 
vestibule  bring  also  a  power  of  selection.  The  higher 
animal  reacts  to  a  very  small  proportion  of  the  total 
objects  that  come  within  its  range  of  perception.  The 
law  is  analogous  to  that  of  the  increase  of  power  in 
an  optical  instrument;  the  field  is  restricted  as  the 
reach  increases, — except  that  in  the  case  of  the 
organism  this  restriction,  being  under  the  consent  of 
the  actual  perception  of  the  whole,  is  not  in  the  same 
sense  a  restriction.  This  discrimination,  society 
carries  further.  It  prescribes  to  some  extent  what  I 
may  not  eat,  whom  I  may  not  fight,  and  whom  I  may 
not  marry.  And  this  element  of  artificiality  is  in 
continuance  of  the  direction  of  phylogenesis  and  of 
experience,  as  before. 

These  circumstances  do  not  sanction  the  social 
process  in  detail.  But  they  make  it  altogether  prob¬ 
able  that  the  gross  normal  effect  of  society  upon 
individual  behavior  is  not  only  of  biological  value,  but 
favorable  as  well  to  that  gathering  of  meaning  which 
is  the  business  of  individual  growth.  For  a  more 
accurate  knowledge  of  what  I  want,  a  better  under¬ 
standing  of  what  any  instinct  means,  could  only  be 
gained  by  better  excluding  what  it  does  not  mean; 


DIRECTIONS  or  MODELLING 


181 


and  such  exclusion  would  naturally  be  made  effective, 
in  society,  by  setting  up  preliminary  conditions  with 
which  I  must  comply,  and  by  defining  certain  objects 
to  which  I  shall  not  react.  If  all  custom  were  good 
custom,  it  would  in  this  way  add  to  the  meaning,  or 
value,  of  all  behavior.  And  we  are  justified  in 
inferring  that,  of  its  own  nature,  society  is  not 
primarily  repressive. 

But  whether  all  custom,  or  any  custom,  is  normal 
custom  these  facts  can  give  no  hint.  In  actuality 
society  has  been  and  is  repressive;  and  especially  in 
three  ways.  (1)  The  standards  and  ideals  it  sets  up 
for  me  to  follow  are  shaped  to  its  own  interest  rather 
than  to  mine, — for  society,  like  nature,  must  look  first 
to  the  group  and  only  secondarily  to  the  individual; 
(2)  the  material  equipment  and  scope  which  it  offers 
me  is  curtailed  by  the  competing  needs  of  others, — 
and  there  are  too  many  of  -us  for  the  supply;  (3)  the 
permitted  modes  of  behavior  fall  into  fixed  institu¬ 
tional  forms,  and  hamper  the  movements  of  any  life 
that  grows  beyond  them.  Social  modelling  can  be 
good,  from  the  standpoint  of  the  individual,  only  if 
all  these  tendencies  are  corrected. 

The  old  theory,  then,  that  ‘‘the  interests  of  the  indi¬ 
vidual  are  identical  with  the  interests  of  society’’  we 
shall  not  unconditionally  accept.  Our  argument  so  far 
may  be  taken  as  a  confirmation  from  a  new  angle  of 
approach  of  the  notion  that  in  the  main  these  interests 
tend  to  agree,  but  not  of  the  notions  of  Hobbes, 
Burke,  Hegel,  and  others  which  seem  to  sanction  any 
pressure  society  might  choose  to  impose  upon  its 


182 


SOCIETY 


members.  We  have  set  up  the  individual  life,  with  its 
natural  dialectic,  as  the  standard  to  which  social 
pressures  must  conform ;  and  by  the  aid  of  this 
standard  we  propose  now  to  outline  what  none  of 
these  thinkers  has  given  us,  namely,  a  set  of  tests 
whereby  we  can  distinguish  a  good  social  order  from 
a  bad  social  order,  considering  in  turn  each  of  the 
three  ways  in  which  societies  are  likely  to  go  wrong. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 


IDEALS  AND  THEIR  RECOMMENDERS 

A  MAN  in  the  midst  of  a  society  which  is  trying 
to  shape  him  is  not  to  be  thought  of  as  sur¬ 
rounded  by  pure  altruists.  Whatever  behavior  is 
recommended  to  him  will  bear  some  trace  of  the  con¬ 
venience  of  the  source  of  recommendation.  The 
virtue  of  labor  in  the  eyes  of  its  employers  is  a 
faithfulness  and  industry’  which  smacks  of  acqui¬ 
escence  in  statu  quo.  The  ideal  citizen,  for  the  stand¬ 
patter,  is  the  ToyaP  vessel  of  party  authority  and 
.  routine.  The  ideal  child  for  the  overburdened  school 
mistress  is  by  almost  physical  necessity  the  ^good’ 
boy,  not  too  beloved  by  his  fellows,  more  docile  than 
enterprising.  It  has  been  said  that  the  excellence  of 
wives  as  defined  by  husbands  shows  similar  traits.  In 
proportion  to  its  self-satisfaction, — and  the  tendency 
of  all  aggregates  is  to  be  self-satisfied — any  group  is 
prone  to  condemn  its  most  vigorous  as  well  as  its 
least  vigorous  members:  if  it  must  move  forward,  it 
keeps  a  mean  which  it  calls  golden ;  it  learns  but  slowly 
the  truth  of  Aristotle’s  saying,  that  the  best  rule  is 
rule  over  the  best.  It  inclines  to  shape  its  members  to 
its  own  ease,  not  to  their  advantage;  it  supplies  them 
with  a  set  of  ideals  visibly  colored  by  its  own  idler 
interest. 


184 


SOCIETY 


But  all  conversation  assumes  an  ultimate  equality, 
even  that  between  master  and  slave,  or  between  society 
and  the  individual.  What  is  required  of  me  must  come 
professing  to  be  for  my  good.  Slaveholders,  Aristotle 
himself,  tried  to  think  slavery  beneficial  for  slaves. 
Interest  may  warp  the  particular  judgment;  but  the 
form  of  the  apology  reveals  the  principle  at  stake. 
The  interest  of  society  by  this  involuntary  confession, 
is  seen  to  have  no  authority  over  me  unless  it  is  also 
my  own  interest.  This  is  the  primary  and  original 
‘ right ^  in  the  relations  of  whole  and  member:  a  man^s 
right  is  to  his  own  development;  the  right  of  society 
exists  only  where  its  own  interest  and  that  interest 
coincide.  And  structurally  (not  historically)  these 
interests  do  coincide,  not  more  because  the  member 
needs  the  society  than  because  no  society  can  prefer 
the  less  developed  to  the  more  developed  member,  » 
other  things  equal.  Not  even  society,  then,  has  a  right 
to  make  use  of  a  person  as  a  mere  means  to  its 
majestic  ends.^ 

The  test  of  a  good  social  order,  then,  will  be  this : 
that  I  am  not  obliged  to  adopt  any  rule  of  conduct 
because  of  what  others  prefer  I  should  do  or  be,  unless 
I  also  have  or  can  have  that  same  preference.  Let  us 

1  There  can,  of  course,  be  no  legal  right  against  political  society,  by 
the  definition  of  a  legal  right  as  something  created  by  society  (how 
mighty  are  definitions ! ) .  By  the  same  sign  it  would  be  inaccurate  to 
speak  of  political  society  itself  as  having  legal  rights,  since  legal  rights 
are  something  which  it  confers  on  its  members.  But  those  who  thus 
argue  from  definitions  sometimes  forget  that  the  legal  right  is  a  specified 
form  of  a  more  generic  relationship;  and  that  under  this  generic  sense 
of  right,  questions  of  right  may  arise  between  two  such  unlike  persons 
as  state  and  individual,  or  society  and  individual. 


IDEALS  AND  THEIK  KECOMMENDERS  185 

state  this  test  in  the  form  of  a  postulate  or  demand 
which  every  good  society  must,  and  can,  comply  with : 

What  others  wish^e  to  be  must  he  identical 
with  what  1  myself  wish  to  he, — 

a  principle  which  we  may  call  the  postulate  of  identical 
ideals.  It  may  be  that  no  society,  no  actual  society, 
complies  with  the  requirement :  but  I  venture  to  think 
that  no  actual  society  despairs  of  complying  with  it 
or  fails  in  practical  ways  to  aim  at  it.  The  conditions 
of  social  life  everywhere  assume  that  however  wide  the 
original  disparity  between  what  I  think  I  would  like 
to  he,  and  what  my  environment  thinks  it  would  have 
me  be,  such  an  agreement  can  he  found  by  some  effort 
of  thought,  or  by  the  slow  working  of  social  arrange¬ 
ments,  or  both.  In  point  of  fact  there  are  arrange¬ 
ments  apparently  as  natural  and  as  old  as  society 
'  itself  which  help  to  secure  precisely  the  agreement 
required  by  the  postulate.  I  shall  mention  the  most 
important  of  these. 

1.  The  direct  impact  of  social  requirements  comes 
to  the  individual  through  the  most  altruistic  part  of 
the  social  shell.  This  is  especially  true  of  his  most 
plastic  years :  he  is  born  among  his  well-wishers.  And 
while  the  egoism  of  parents  has  also  to  be  reckoned 
with,  the  danger  of  social  tyranny  lies  rather  in  their 
lack  of  originality  than  in  their  lack  of  pride  in  the 
personal  growth  of  their  child.  It  is  always  possible 
that,  as  filtered  through  the  medium  of  the  family,  the 
demand  of  society  will  strike  with  too  little  force 
rather  than  too  much.  For  the  identity  required  in 


186 


SOCIETY 


the  postulate  calls  for  an  effort  on  the  part  of  the 
individual  as  well  as  upon  the  part  of  society,  espe¬ 
cially  as  the  individual  cannot  be  said  to  know  without 
much  drastic  trial  what  in  particular  he  wishes  to  be. 

2.  RecommendersMp.  If  society  were  sufficiently 
self-conscious  to  perceive  that  this  immensely  impor¬ 
tant  ideal-making  function  is  everywhere  muddled  and 
adulterated  by  short-sighted  egoism,  its  own  included, 
it  might  be  imagined  as  referring  this  function  to  a 
carefully  chosen  and  disinterested  third  party. 

Such  an  imaginary  arbitrator  it  would  be  difficult 
to  realize  in  the  flesh.  He  must  be  no  member  of 
society,  either  in  its  capacity  as  impressing  ideals  or 
in  its  capacity  as  receiving  and  using  them.  He  would 
nevertheless  have  to  know  human  nature  to  the 
bottom,  and  the  necessities  of  social  order.  He  would 
have  to  understand  all  parties,  all  social  conflicts,  and 
all  occupations,  and  yet  participate  in  none  of  them. 

Political  theory  has  now  and  again  attempted  to 
define  such  a  functionary,  inasmuch  as  the  logical 
problem  of  a  liberal  government  in  preventing  the 
warping  of  laws  by  political  tyranny  is  very  much  the 
same  as  ours.  This  problem  is :  so  to  organize  a 
public  body  that  to  every  possible  pair  of  parties 
there  is  always  a  third  party  to  pass  judgment  between 
them,  even  when  the  two  parties  are  the  public  as  a 
whole  and  any  part  or  member  thereof.  John  Locke 
tried,  in  effect,  to  provide  a  perfectly  general  solution 
for  this  problem,  and  all  but  succeeded.  His  legis¬ 
lative’  is  a  good  third  to  every  pair  of  parties  that 
can  be  defined  among  the  people,  including  executive 


IDEALS  AND  THEIE  KECOMMENDERS  187 

and  people,  and  also  including  itself  as  ' part  of  the 
people.  He  only  failed  to  provide  for  a  third  party 
between  the  legislative  in  office  and  the  people,  which 
is  precisely  the  point  at  which  we,  in  our  own  problem, 
need  relief.  Here  Locke  had  no  recourse  but  the 
‘appeal  to  Heaven.’  And  we  look  in  vain  in  any 
subsequent  writer  or  political  device  for  the  general 
solution  of  our  problem. 

But  Eousseau,  approaching  the  problem  from  the 
other  end,  that  of  protecting  people  from  their  own 
idleness  and  ignorance,  saw  far  more  clearly  than 
Locke  the  conditions  for  finding  just  social  standards. 
“In  order  to  discover  the  social  rules  best  suited  to 
peoples,  a  superior  intelligence  would  be  required, 
which  should  behold  all  the  passions  of  men  without 
experiencing  any  of  them.  This  intelligence  would 
have  to  be  wholly  independent  of  our  nature  while 
knowing  it  through  and  through.  Its  own  welfare 
would  have  to  be  secure  apart  from  us;  and  yet  it 
must  be  ready  to  concern  itself  with  our  'welfare. 
And  lastly,  it  would  have  to  look  forward  in  the  march 
of  time  to  a  distant  consummation,  and  working  in  one 
century  be  willing  to  put  its  enjoyment  in  the  next. 
It  would  take  gods  to  give  laws  to  man.”^  Surpris¬ 
ingly  like  what  we  thought  necessary  to  protect  men 
from  society  is  Eousseau ’s  view  of  what  is  necessary 
to  protect  men  from  themselves;  and  on  the  lips  of 
the  supposed  believer  in  absolute  democracy,  the 
sentiment  is  striking.  But  if  we  ask  what  provision 

4 

Eousseau  would  make  to  secure  this  ideal  giver  of 

2  The  Social  Contract,  Book  II,  ch.  vii. 


188 


SOCIETY 


laws  we  find  no  answer;  for  snch  a  legislator  is  an 
anomaly  in  Ronssean’s  state,  and  if  we  may  jndge 
from  his  words,  in  any  state.  It  is  but  a  fiction,  called 
upon  to  do  the  work  of  a  reality.  ^^This  sublime 
reason,’’  he  says,  almost  cynically,  ^‘far  above  the 
range  of  the  common  herd,  is  that  whose  decisions  the 
actual  legislator  puts  into  the  mouth  of  the  immortals, 
in  order  to  constrain  by  (the  pretence  of)  divine 
authority  those  whom  human  prudence  could  not 
move.”  Thus  Rousseau  also  is  driven  to  an  appeal 
to  Heaven,  but  to  a  merely  dramatic  appeal.  To 
impute  in  this  way  an  unreal  divine  quality  to  what 
is  after  all  but  a  humanly  conceived  standard  of 
behavior  might  well  provide  the  needed  force;  but 
unless  we  could  also  ensure  the  divine  wisdom  and 
justice,  this  appeal  would  only  deepen  the  tyranny,  as 
the  course  of  history  may  show. 

Nevertheless,  the  arrangement  which  is  so  difficult 
from  the  standpoint  of  practical  statecraft  exists, 
and  has  existed  from  time  immemorial,  in  ordinary 
social  structure.  It  makes  use  of  a  common  property 
of  the  self-conscious  mind, — the  capacity  of  being, 
while  immersed  in  the  stream  of  events,  at  the  same 
time  reflectively  aloof  from  them.  The  man  who 
recommends  to  others  what  were  good  to  be  done 
without  having  to  follow  his  own  teaching,  or  being  in 
a  position  to  do  so,  is  not  an  unknown  person,  nor  on 
the  whole  an  unwelcome  person.  And  it  has  been 
found  possible  to  devise  circumstances  which  give  his 
announcement  of  rules  and  ideals  so  much  detachment 
from  the  usual  cares  and  fears  of  the  casual  disin- 


IDEALS  AND  THEIR  RECOMMENDERS  189 

terested  observer,  that  the  appeal  to  Heaven’’ 
would  be  a  phrase  not  wholly  unwarranted  in  his  case. 

Society,  in  short,  has  never  been  without  its  pro¬ 
fessional  ^  Hecommenders  ’ ;  and  it  has  never  failed 
to  accord  them  a  position  of  such  immunity  that  their 
words  are  as  nearly  as  possible  the  Avords  of  the  freed 
spirit.  In  ancient  times,  they  Avere  the  elders,  the 
shamans,  the  medicine  men,  the  prophets,  the  priests. 
In  latter  days,  these  also,  and  with  them  all  whose 
work  is  the  liberal  reflection  upon  human  life, — the 
scholars,  the  men  of  letters  and  of  art.  Such  men  live 
voluntarily  both  within  the  society  and  mentally 
without  it ;  in  the  theological  phrase  their  mental 
position  is  both  immanent  and  transcendent.  At  times 
they  have  lived  in  security  and  freedom  both  political 
and  economic;  but  always  they  have  survived  only  so 
far  as  men  have  found  in  them  an  actual  per¬ 
formance  in  some  measure  of  the  momentous  function 
of  delineating  the  man  who  is  at  once  fully  himself 
and  fully  the  servant  of  the  social  order.  They  have 
done  their  work  more  or  less  badly,  turbidly,  venally; 
but  in  spite  of  the  men,  mankind  has  valued  the  func¬ 
tion.  In  so  far  as  it  tolerates  them,  organized  society 
bears  witness  to  its  own  self-abnegation  ;  through  them 
it  secure^  the  unhampered  force  of  its  own  severest 
self-judgment.  The  original  moral  nature  we  found 
attaching  itself,  as  if  by  instinct,  to  its  chosen  Third 
Parties”;  these  it  finds  naturally  among  the  Kecom- 
menders,  and  the  powers  they  represent.  From  both 
sides,  then,  that  of  society  and  that  of  the  individual, 
the  Pecommender  is  an  agent  of  progress  in  the 


190 


SOCIETY 


direction  of  realizing  onr  postulate;  and  so  far  as  it 
can  make  nse  of  this  (free  and  unofficial)  triadic 
structure,  society  succeeds,  as  it  were,  in  lifting  itself 
by  its  own  bootstraps.  The  ideals  under  which  men 
perforce  live  thus  tend  to  approximate  the  ideals  they 
would  choose  for  themselves. 

3.  The  particular  advantage  gained  by  the  detach¬ 
ment  of  Recommendership  is  the  correction  of  the 
interested  ideal:  but  like  every  advantage,  this  one 
also  is  bought  with  a  price;  and  society  needs  always 
to  be  saved  from  the  besetting  vice  of  its  Recom- 
menders,  that  of  abstraction.  Since  Aristotle  drew  his 
sharp-cut  pictures  of  the  philosopher  and  the  states¬ 
man  we  have  progressed  far  in  the  art  of  combining 
the  contrasting  careers  of  reflection  and  action;  but 
we  are  still  far  from  knowing  how  to  be  wholly  im¬ 
mersed  in  affairs  and  at  the  same  time  adequately  to 
reflect  upon  them.  Hence  we  need  protection  from  the 
abstract  ideal,  as  well  as  from  the  interested  ideal. 

Contemporary  consciousness  is  keenly  aware  of  this 
need.  We  see  that  by  the  circumstances  of  their 
origin  our  inherited  magazine  of  standards  is  likely 
to  fit  the  men  of  fiction  better  than  the  men  of  reality ; 
and  there  are  many  signs  of  the  inclination  to  attribute 
the  difficulty  to  ^philosophy’  or  to  ^idealism,’  when  it 
is  simply  the  difficulty  of  reflective  self-consciousness 
everywhere.  Biography  encounters  it  in  the  form  of 
an  apparent  dilemma:  that  between  being  on  the  one 
hand  realistic  and  disappointing,  and  on  the  other, 
abstractly  heroic  and  unreal.  All  history,  all  art,  all 
reflective  description  of  mankind  encounters  it. 


IDEALS  AND  THEIE  EECOMMENDEES  191 

One  of  the  class  faults  of  the  Recommender,  an 

/ 

expression  of  the  penchant  for  keen  and  sensitive 
listening  that  makes  him  pseful,  is  an  over-valuation 
of  the  aesthetic  elements  in  our  necessary  interests, — 
the  unmixed,  the  clear,  the  simple,  the  orderly,  the 
systematic,  the  ‘pure/^  Our  aversions  to  dirt  or  to 
disorder  are  not  profoundly  natural,  and  in  this  case 
nature  may  he  partly  right :  certainly  a  highly  success¬ 
ful  patternism  and  purism  produce  distrust  by  their 
very  clarity.  Mature  worldly  wisdom  is  quick  to 
detect  the  shop-product  of  Recommendership ;  and  not 
uncommonly  it  adopts  an  indulgent  superiority  to  the 
whole  business  of  ideals,’  as  a  necessary  but  always 
transitory  incident  in  the  process  of  growing-up. 

But  there  is  a  natural  corrective  for  the  tyranny  of 
abstractions,  less  easy  than  this  superior  realism,  but 
more  honest.  It  is  found  in  the  circumstance  that 
abstractions  breed  their  own  critics  in  opposing 
abstractions ;  so  that  individual  judgment  is  summoned 
to  select  between  them  or  to  combine  them.  The  over¬ 
burdened  school  mistress  we  were  speaking  of  has, 
no  doubt,  an  abstract  ideal.  But  the  contrasting  ideals 
of  the  boys^  gang,  administered  through  that  fear  of 
being  thought  afraid  which  makes  the  life  of  a  small 
boy  with  his  fellows  a  chronic,  if  subconscious,  hazing 
party, — these  ideals  also,  with  all  their  flourish  of 
substantiality,  are  abstract.  So,  too,  are  all  the 
maturer  realisms  abstract.  Whatever  common  sense 

3  Sir  Henry  Maine ’s  attitude  toward  the  ideals  of  an  equity  based  on 
‘natural  law’  well  illustrates  the  revulsion  from  this  defect.  Ancient 
Law,  chs.  iii  and  iv. 


192 


SOCIETY 


any  boy  or  man  achieves  as  a  gnide  of  his  life  must 
be  won  by  composing  for  himself  the  half-truths  of 
his  opposing  abstract  authorities.  And  in  this  process 
of  composing,  he  will  be  guided  by  that  same  mental 
after-image  which  directs  his  individual  experience.^ 

4.  By  the  play  of  one  authority  against  another, 
authority  thus  sinks  to  its  rightful  place  as-  an  element, 
a  necessary  ^  element,  in  the  circuits  of  individual 
growth.  But  after  all,  what  assurance  have  we  that 
this  playing  with  authority  is  not  simply  a  com¬ 
promise!  For  the  sake  of  living  in  society,  I  bargain 
away,  as  by  an  implied  contract,  a  certain  amount  of 
liberty,  that  is  to  say,  of  myself.  Recommenders  help 
to  make  the  bargain  less  costly  for  me ;  and  their  own 
differences  and  competitions  still  further  lower  the 
price  of  the  social  commodity.  But  is  not  the  trans¬ 
action  at  its  best  after  all  a  sale,  a  relinquishment  of 
my  free  nature! 

In  fact  we  have  not  shown  that  our  postulate  can  be 
complied  with;  that  any  real  identity  of  what  I  want 
*  and  what  others  want  of  me  can  be  reached.  The 
missing  link  in  the  logic,  however,  may  be  supplied; 
and  perhaps  conveniently  by  considering  the  anatomy 
of  admiration^  from  which  sentiment  any  ideal  must 
come. 

In  the  boy’s  desire  to  be  a  man,  amounting  at  times 

4  It  is  in  such  situations  that  the  dialectic  of  experience,  at  first  of 
the  simple  Platonic  form,  tends  to  fall  into  the  Hegelian  pattern,  the 
opposing  Eecommenders  standing  as  thesis  and  antithesis,  while  the  self 
undertakes  to  reinterpret  their  ideas  in  a  synthesis  of  its  own.  Many  of 
Hegel’s  triads  are  fair  formal  accounts  of  social  experience;  fewer  than 
he  thought  express  common  or  universal  experience. 


IDEALS  AND  THEIR  RECOMMENDERS  193 

to  a  ruling  passion,  society  finds  the  need  upon  which 
many  a  hard  bargain  can  be  driven.  If  the  Spartan 
boy  thinks  that  to  be  a  man  involves  enduring  much 
pain  without  flinching,  no  theory  of  his  interest  will 
prevent  him  from  submitting  to  torture.  He  is  gov¬ 
erned  not  by  ideals  alone,  but  by  his  concrete  admira¬ 
tions.  His  principle  might  be  stated:  What  I  admire 
in  others  1  wish  for  myself  (naturally  with  the  under¬ 
standing  that  what  man  has  done  man  can  do  again). 
It  is  logically  impossible  for  him  to  detach  his  thought 
of  himself  from  his  thought  of  others ;  because  in  every 
instance,  including  his  own,  consciousness  shows  him 
at  once  the  individual  and  the  type.  In  every  human 
event,  he  is  perceiving  man.  But  this  general  prin¬ 
ciple,  that  what  one  admires  one  admires  universally, 
applies  also  to  the  admirations  of  others :  they  cannot 
emancipate  their  admirations  from  their  experience. 
Hence  admiration  is  held  within  the  scope  of  the 
possible;  and  it  tends  to  be  true  of  all  fundamental 
values,  that  What  others  admire,  I  admire.  ^  The 
connection  with  our  postulate  is  therewith  complete. 
What  others  would  admire  in  me  tends  to  agree  with 
what  I  actually  admire  in  them:  and  what  I  admire 
in  them  I  must  admire  (and  wish  for)  in  myself :  hence, 
what  they  would  admire  in  me,  I  must  wish  for  in 
myself. 

It  is  true  that  admiration  is  capable  of  drinking 
up  much  sediment  with  its  cup,  imitation  being  thel 
most  indiscriminate  of  all  human  proclivities.  It  is 
also  true  that  I  cease  in  time  to  hope  to  realize  in 
myself  all  that  I  admire.  I  find  that  I  can  be  neither 


194 


SOCIETY 


Lincoln,  nor  Napoleon,  nor  Plato.  Yet  in  any  snch 
relinquishment,  I  forgo  only  the  detail  and  the  degree ; 
I  persist  in  demanding  of  myself  that  I  transplant 
into  my  own  work  and  upon  my  own  scale,  the  most 
general  quality  of  my  admiration.  For  at  bottom, 
admiration  is  a  form  of  appetite.  Men  can  only 
admire  where  they  can  have  interest  and  possibility. 
No  amount  of  recommendation  can  make  the  ideals 
of  mediaeval  art  an  object  {in  to  to)  of  my  desire  for 
myself :  no  hunger  of  mine  leans  that  way.  The 
individual  need  is  cared  for  by  the  spontaneous 
emphasis  of  his  admirations.  I  can  admire  what 
others  admire  only  so  far  as  I  do  in  reality  belong  to 
their  species  and  to  their  clan.  But  this  organic  basis 
of  desire  for  quality  is  perhaps  the  best  security  that 
the  authorities  within  one’s  own  age  and  society  will 
be  roughly  the  authorities  meeting  one’s  major  needs. 

In  many  simple  passes  of  daily  experience  we 
acknowledge  clearly  enough  that  the  social  eye  intrudes 
upon  our  own  more  private  life  not  to  alienate,  but 
to  recall  us  to  ourselves.  Imagine,  for  example,  that 
in  that  wild  place,  that  arena  in  which  primitive 
motives  are  free  to  appear  and  be  wrestled  with, — 
imagine,  I  say,  that  in  the  family  circle  some  explosion 
of  primitive  wrath  takes  place.  And  suppose  that  by 
inadvertence  an  honored  guest  becomes  witness  of  the 
scene.  This  accidental  intrusion  of  the  disinterested 
eye  is  likely  to  come  not  as  a  disagreeable  reminder 
of  a  false  convention;  but  as  lending  new  vigor — 
through  the  chagrin — to  certain  languishing  maxims 
of  self-control  which  personal  experience  in  the 


IDEALS  AND  THEIR  RECOMMENDERS  195 

dialectic  of  pugnacity  had  already  suggested.  What 
my  friend  wishes  me  to  be,  and  what  I  would  appear 
to  him  to  be,  is  without  doubt  what  I  also  demand  for 
myself.  In  this  instance,  at  least,  I  am  recalled  to  my 

own  freedom.  And  this  is  the  natural  destiny  of  all 

•/ 

the  arrangements  by  which  society  foists  ideals  upon 
individual  lives. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 


LAWS  AND  THE  STATE 

IN  the  making  of  ideals  there  is  no  necessary  com¬ 
promise  of  individual  welfare.  But  in  managing 
the  materials  of  existence,  some  compromise  is  inevi¬ 
table.  If  men  live  together  at  all,  especially  if  they 
live  close  together  like  trees  in  a  forest,  what  happens 
to  the  trees  will  necessarily  happen  to  the  men  also. 
It  is  idle  to  suppose  that  their  side  branches  can  reach 
full  development. 

The  total  burden  of  scarcity  in  room  and  wealth, 
society  in  political  form  usually  undertakes  to  dis¬ 
tribute.  Apart  from  political  rules  and  distinctions, 
men  usually  adopt  the  plan  of  equal  sharing  if  they 
wish  to  preserve  the  peace :  this  is  the  thought-saving 
justice  of  ^ nature.’^  Social  rules  try  to  secure  first 
the  least  total  suffering,  and  then  proportionate 
suffering  according  to  some  usable  principle  of  dis¬ 
tribution.  But  all  laws,  rules,  understandings,  assume 
some  suffering, — an  insufficiency  of  competitive  goods, 
the  consequent  existence  of  unsatisfied  instincts  and 
imperfect  growth. 

1  Hear  the  anthropologist  on  this  point :  ‘  ‘  Among  the  savages  of 

the  upper  Orinoco,  one  of  the  most  primitive  of  extant  peoples,  whatever 
eatable  is  discovered  by  one  of  a  pair  is  immediately  divided,  with  much 
care  for  equality  of  division,  though  there  is  no  political  authority 
among  them, etc. 


LAWS  AND  THE  STATE 


197 


In  this  respect,  then,  the  political  condition  obviously  , 
takes  the  form  of  a  bargain  or  contract.  The  much 
maligned  ‘‘social  contract^’  has  certainly  no  truth  as 
a  description  of  political  origins  (and  was  never  so 
understood  by  its  more  distinguished  expounders) ; 
but  as  a  formal  expression  for  a  natural  preference 
it  is  an  entirely  valid  way  of  stating  the  case.  Better 
is  partial  hunger  “and  quietness  therewith’’  than  the 
slim  chance  of  a  full  stomach  with  hostility  to  all 
neighbors.  Security,  peace,  and  their  corollary,  “a 
calculable  future,”  are  worth  to  most  men  the  sacrifice 
of  the  fighter’s  chance  together  with  the  privilege  of 
free  fighting  itself :  and  this,  to  Hobbes,  is  the  essential 
preference  which  sanctions  the  political  state.  This 
is,  indeed,  no  adequate  account  of  the  two  sides  of  the 
bargain.  The  insurance  aspect  of  social  order  has 
been  overdone  in  all  these  contract  formulae;  and  is 
still  overdone  in  contemporary  theories  of  the  State.^ 
The  growth  of  cities  shows,  among  other  things,  that 
to  most  men  the  hazard  of  a  large  gain  is  still  more 
attractive  than  the  assurance  of  a  little ;  and  the 
weight  of  preference  for  unsalaried  over  salaried 
occupations  suggests  as  much.  To  all  that  Hobbes 
sees  of  value  in  the  civil  condition,  we  must  at  least 
add  the  disinterested  satisfaction  of  social  instincts 
and  of  the  insistent  hunger  for  self-knowledge.  But 
whatever  the  terms  of  the  exchange,  the  truth  remains 

2  As  in  Bagehot’s  phrase  just  quoted,  ‘^a  calculable  future”;  or 
Eoyce,  War  and  Insurance;  or  J.  Kohler,  Philosophy  of  Law,  ”It  is 
necessary  for  the  progress  of  culture  that  chance  be  conquered”  (p. 
28).  The  conquest  of  chance  is  an  important,  but  by  no  means  the 
primary,  value  of  social  order. 


198 


SOCIETY 


that  we  must  surrender  something  for  the  sake  of 
being  social;  and  so,  in  spite  of  the  high  polemic 
against  the  historical  reality  and  the  legal  status  of 
a  social  contract,  no  one  really  questions  the  psycho¬ 
logical  truth  of  its  central  idea.^  The  question  is 
always  pertinent:  ^^What  is  the  cost  of  organized 
society  to  its  members?’^  and  ^^Is  such  society  worth 
the  cost?’^ 


I 

For  our  purposes  it  is  necessary  to  estimate  this 
cost  not  in  terms  of  pleasure  and  pain,  as  particular 
satisfactions,  hut  in  terms  of  instinct  and  will  and 
their  full  development. 

To  Hobbes  it  seemed  evident  that  our  instincts  are 
doomed  to  he  seriously  hampered,  inasmuch  as  ^‘the 
laws  of  Nature,  as  ^justice,’  ^equity,’  ‘modesty,’ 
‘mercy,’  and  in  sum  ‘doing  to  others  as  we  would  be 
done  to’  .  .  .  are  contrary  to  our  natural  passions, 
that  carry  us  to  partiality,  pride,  revenge  and  the 
like.”^  Here  our  study  of  the  dialectic  of  pugnacity 
comes  to  hand:  we  can  state  that  “our  natural  pas¬ 
sions”  of  their  own  motion  carry  us  well  beyond 
revenge,  and  well  into  the  region  of  justice,  equity, 

3  The  discussion  of  the  social  contract  theory  from  Hume  to  the 
present  is  one  of  the  least  creditable  chapters  in  modern  scholarship. 
It  illustrates  too  often  how  seekers  of  Truth  can  ‘  ‘  darken  counsel  ’  ’  by 
stooping  to  refute  a  position  defined  by  themselves  only.  This  is  much 
easier  than  attempting  to  discover  what  the  opponent  actually  meant. 
Even  Kohler,  who  is  everywhere  substantial  and  wise,  has  allowed  himself 
to  nod  on  this  matter  (Philosophy  of  Law,  p.  10,  Eng.  tr.). 

4  Leviathan,  ch.  xvii. 


LAWS  AND  THE  STATE 


199 


and  even  of  mercy.  This  dialectic  presupposes  con¬ 
tinuous  social  experience,  and  would  not  take  place 
apart  from  social  order;  but  the  point  is,  that  given 
the  social  order,  such  modifications  of  behavior 
involve  no  curtailment  of  individual  growth.  The 
same  is  true  of  many  other  repressions  that  begin 
from  the  outside,  and  become  adopted  into  the  indi¬ 
vidual  constitution.  Could  we  examine  here  the 
dialectic  of  each  several  instinct  we  should  find  that 
none  come  from  their  social-legal  baptism  unaltered, 
or  untaught.  In  general,  law,  which  at  first  is  con¬ 
trary  to  the  state  of  a  personas  will,  brings  about  the 
state  of  mind  which  justifies  the  law.  In  Eousseau’s^ 
judgment,  it  is  at  least  possible  that  every  human 
impulse  should  submit  to  its  social  compression,  be 
‘  ‘  yielded  up  to  the  general  will,  ’  ’  and  yet  the  individual 
still  obey  himself  alone,  and  remain  as  free  as 
before.’’  And  to  Hegel,  the  action  of  society  is  so 
fundamentally  informing  and  liberating,  that  social 
mutilation  is  not  so  much  as  considered.  Laws  and 
institutions  act  purely  to  interpret  to  each  member 
of  the  State  his  own  deeper  will. 

But  the  rosy  views  of  Eousseau  and  Hegel  seem  as 
excessive  on  one  side  as  the  more  savage  views  of 
Hobbes  on  the  other.  While  to  Hobbes  every  social 
repression  is  a  pure  loss,  a  necessary  tax  on  natural 
liberty,  and  none  an  ingredient  of  my  own  will,  for 
Hegel  every  such  repression  is  a  part  of  my  will,  and 
none  a  pure  loss.  This  latter  position  seems  rather  to 
describe  an  ideal  than  an  actual  or  possible  social  state. 
If  every  privation  incident  to  orderly  social  life. 


200 


SOCIETY 


including  the  loss  of  the  liberty  either  to  judge  or  to 
avenge  my  own  injuries, — if  every  such  privation  were 
just  what  I,  with  full  insight,  would  freely  impose 
upon  myself  for  the  sake  of  more  inclusive  and 
significant  ends,  it  would  mean,  would  it  not,  that  all 
competitive  relations  in  society  had  been  transformed 
or  absorbed  into  non-competitive  relations  1  In  so  far, 
for  example,  as  the  scramble  for  food  becomes  an 
incident  of  a  wholly  non-competitive  interest  in  im¬ 
proving  industrial  technique,  I  can  truly  say  that  social 
necessities  are  ministering  to  the  freedom  of  my  own 
major  desires  and  for  so  much  of  a  spur  I  may  be 
grateful.  The  criterion,  then,  of  an  entirely  free 
social  existence  would  be  (and  this  we  shall  call  our 
second  postulate)  : 

Every  competitive  interest  must  he  so 
transformed  or  interpreted  as  to  he 
non-competitive,  or  an  ingredient  in  a 
non-competitive  interest. 

And  we  must  enquire,  as  before,  how  .far  social  ar¬ 
rangements  facilitate,  or  make  possible,  the  meeting 
of  this  demand. 

II 

In  the  large  we  may  say  that  the  primary  economic 
needs,  those  for  food,  shelter,  etc.,  are  competitive  and 
always  will  be  competitive ;  because  the  material 
objects  which  they  require  exist  in  limited  quantities 
as  compared  with  the  demand,  especially  when  quality 
is  taken  into  account. 


LAWS  AND  THE  STATE 


201 


On  the  other  hand,  what  w^e  have  called  onr  neces¬ 
sary  interests  are  normally  non-competitive.  When 
you  satisfy  your  interest  in  unity  or  rhythm  or  order 
you  help  to  satisfy  my  interest  in  these  same  objects. 
For  these  objects  are  neither  limited  in  quantity  nor 
are  they  capable  of  being  made  private  possession  in 
such  wise  that  the  more  vou  have  the  less  there  is  left 
for  me.  In  adding  to  your  own  wealth  in  these  goods, 
you  add  to  a  common  fund.  Taking  the  ^will  to  live’ 
as  a  typical  necessary  interest,  it  is  true  that  there 
are  conceivable  situations  in  which  it  is  ^‘Either  your 
life  or  mine,” — chiefly  situations  in  which  life  hangs 
on  some  physical  condition.  But  when  I  regard  life 
as  a  human  life,  i.e.,  as  a  process  of  thought,  a  constant 
exchange  of  ideas  and  appreciations,  the  disjunction, 
‘^Either  your  life  or  mine”  becomes  absurd:  I  can 
have  no  such  life  unless  you  are  there,  and  the  more 
you  have,  the  more  I  have  also.  With  such  goods  all 
property  runs  to  a  common  fund;  and  in  all  exchange 
both  parties  gain  without  losing. 

Necessary  interests  may  appear  to  be  competitive  if 
made  to  simulate  the  economic  pattern,  as  when  one 
claims  a  monopoly  of  an  idea,  and  patents  it.  And 
there  are  simple  devices  whereby  economic  needs  are 
made  to  appear  non-competitive.  They  are  arrange¬ 
ments  for  simulating  the  common  fund  and  the  process 
of  exchange  which  are  characteristic  of  the  non¬ 
competitive  interest.  If  we  oblige  each  member  of 
a  group  to  get  what  he  wants,  not  directly,  but  by  way 
of  a  common  fund,  it  is  evident  that  he  will  be  con¬ 
cerned  to  add  as  much  as  possible  to  this  common 


202 


SOCIETY 


fund,  and  so  seem  to  have  common  cause  with  all  the 
rest.  And  if  we  oblige  members  to  pursue  different 
tasks,  so  that  each  can  get  what  he  wants  only  by 
trading  with  somebody  else,  it  is  evident  that  each  will 
be  concerned  to  produce  as  much  as  possible  for  the 
use  of  the  rest.  But  it  is  clear  that  these  indirect 
methods  of  getting  are  artificial  and  must  be  enforced : 
they  conceal  but  do  not  alter  the  competitive  nature 
of  the  underlying  interest. 

But  social  life  must  always  be  a  union  of  both  types 
of  interest.  And  the  union  is  to  this  extent  inseparable, 
that  there  are  no  interests,  however  general,  which  do 
not  require  the  private  and  exclusive  use  of  some 
material  objects,  and  so  far  take  on  the  economic  type. 
The  will  to  power  will  thus  have  competitive  and  non¬ 
competitive  ingredients.  And  the  fate  of  our  second 
postulate  will  depend  upon  whether  these  competitive 
ingredients  can  be  subordinated  to  the  non-competitive 
ingredients. 

Power,’’  as  Hobbes  has  accurately  pointed  out, 
quickly  becomes  the  representative  object  of  pursuit, 
as  a  symbol  for  all  economic  goods.  Instead  of 
working  for  them,  we  work  first  for  power  (or  for 
wealth,  as  its  measure)  as  a  means  to  them;  then  as  an 
end  in  itself.  In  spite  of  the  contumely  heaped  upon 
the  stock  miser,”  this  is  a  valuable  transformation 
of  crude  instinct.  ^Hn  itself,”  says  Kohler,  ^‘the 
instinct  for  food  is  brutal.  .  .  .  This  state  of  things 
does  not  change  until  the  instinct  for  food  is  ennobled 
by  becoming  the  instinct  for  wealth,  and  a  certain 
system  and  order  enter  into  the  acquisition  of  materia] 


LAWS  AND  THE  STATE 


203 


goods. But  this  transformation  still  leaves  the 
competitive  quality  dominant.  Non-competitive  rela¬ 
tions  are  but  simulated,  as  in  the  directer  strife  for 
existence.  I  can  gain  power  over  a  fish  only  by  first 
offering  it  a  service;  but  the  tender  of  a  meal  to  the 
fish  is  not  an  accurate  index  to  my  ultimate  purpose. 
In  human  society  as  well,  power  is  best  gained 
indirectly,  through  proffers  of  service :  you  control 
me,  for  the  most  part,  only  by  controlling  what  I  want, 
or  think  I  want.  But  the  phrase  ‘‘Ich  dien’^  only 
names  the  indirect  route  through  which  you  mount  to 
ascendency. 

Such  power,  in  fact,  is  more  essentially  and  more 
unremittingly  competitive  than  any  other  motive, 
because  while  it  is  always  finite  in  amount,  it  has 
no  quantitative  maximum.  However  much  I  have, 
another  may  have  more ;  and  indeed  the  best  way  for 
him  to  get  more,  if  I  have  much,  is  by  controlling  me. 
Could  he  but  be  sure  of  this  control,  he  would  have 
every  interest  to  add  to  my  own  power;  the  greater 
my  power,  the  greater  his, — just  as  the  greater  the 
power  of  a  tool  or  machine,  the  greater  the  power  of 
the  owner.  Thus  the  simulated  identity  of  interests 
might  come  as  close  as  you  please  to  an  actual  identity 
in  appearance,  while,  remaining  as  far  as  possible  from 
identity  in  actual  motive. 

And  it  is  just  at  this  point,  as  the  quest  of  competi¬ 
tive  power  grows  without  limit,  that  the  simulated 
identity  may  become  an  actual  identity,  and  take  on 
a  genuine  non-competitive  character.  For  clearly  the 

5  Philosophy  of  Law,  p.  46. 


204 


SOCIETY 


only  way  in  which  a  finite  being  can  ride  to  infinite 
or  unlimited  power  is  by  finding  that  power  in  another 
being,  or  an  unlimited  number  of  others  like  himself; 
and  the  only  way  in  which  such  an  unlimited  number 
of  others  can  be  brought  under  his  control,  is  that 
they  shall  freely  come  under  it  because  he  can  actually 
serve  them.  And  the  only  way  in  which  he  can  serve 
an  unlimited  number  of  others  is  by  providing  them 
something  unlimited  in  space  and  time,  something  of 
the  nature  of  idea  rather  than  of  matter  for  consump¬ 
tion.  One  must  perforce  enter  the  field  of  necessary 
interests,  and  of  funds  naturally  common,  in  order  to 
win  an  infinite  ascendency.  But  in  entering  this  field, 
not  only  does  his  own  power  become  potentially 
infinite,  but  so  also  does  the  power  of  every  other. 

For  every  man  has  an  idea,  a  view  of  things,  which 
distinguishes  him  by  birth  from  every  other  person; 
and  the  value  of  that  idea,  or  ^  point  of  view,  ^  to  others 
is  his  chief  excuse  for  existence  as  a  human  being. 
And  while  the  work  and  thought  of  every  man  do  in 
fact  leave  so  much  less  for  other  men  to  do,  the  sum 
of  things  to  be  thought  and  done  remains  infinite,  so 
that  there  can  be  no  competition  for  new  ideas.  It  is 
rare  indeed  that  the  workers  in  ideas  so  much  as  fancy 
that  another  has  usurped  their  territory  and  stolen 
away  their  crown ;  but  if  they  fancy  this,  it  is  because 
they  have  not  yet  discovered  their  own  territory.  In 
terms  of  his  idea,  the  power  of  each  individual  is 
potentially  infinite,  and  non-competitive. 

The  total  accumulated  power  of  mankind  in  terms 
of  ideas’  (under  which  head  we  include  conceptions 


LAWS  AND  THE  STATE 


205 


of  beauty  and  of  utility  and  technique  as  well  as  of 
scientific  law  and  psychological  insight)  we  call  (now 
somewhat  diffidently)  ^  ^  culture. Any  idea  which  you 
or  I  may  have  wins  its  control  by  entering  into  this 
growing  body.  And  the  exercise  of  any  such  power  is 
instantly  reciprocal.  For  to  say  that  your  idea 
controls  me,  and  to  say  that  I  control  your  idea,  are  - 
but  two  ways  of  saying  the  same  thing.  Your  power 
is  identically  mine.  Thus,  so  far  as,  a  substantial  and 
living  culture  exists,  the  will  to  power  of  any  indi¬ 
vidual  may  take  on  a  non-competitive  meaning. 

Ill 

/ 

But  ^‘culture’’  does  not  exist  by  spontaneous 
generation,  any  more  than  history, — the  mental  con¬ 
tinuity  and  totality  of  men, — exists  by  itself.  Non- 
competitive  interests  of  course  exist  in  some  measure 
wherever  two  or  three  are  gathered  together.  But  if 
we  seek  for  a  non-competitive  form  of  power  which 
shall  be  substantial  and  compelling  enough  to  take  up  > 
into  itself  all  the  competitive  forms  as  subordinate 
ingredients,  we  can  only  find  it  if  history  and  culture 
are  created,  that  is  to  say,  if  by  some  positive  effort 
the  race  is  mentally  held  together.  It  is  this  necessity 
which  produces  the  political  State.  The  State  is  the 
objective  condition  through  which  a  non-competitive 
satisfaction  of  the  will  to  power  becomes  possible.  The 
State  is  the  condition  under  which  alone  our  second 
postulate  can  be  satisfied.  It  is  no  psychological 
accident,  therefore,  that  the  first  business  of  the  will 
to  power  in  the  order  of  time  has  been  the  creation  of 


206 


SOCIETY 


political  rule,  and  therewith  of  history  and  culture. 
By  that  deed,  however  violent,  the  crasser  and  com¬ 
petitive  forms  of  this  will  have  paved  the  way  for 
their  own  subjugation  under  the  more  human  forms. 

It  is  not  altogether  surprising  that  men  have  been 

somewhat  mystified  at  the  degree  of  importance  which 

they  themselves  have  ascribed  to  political  entities ;  nor 

that,  becoming  critical,  they  have  often  adopted,  as 

Tolstoy,  skeptical  or  anarchistic  conclusions.  For 

the  deepest  needs  are  the  last  to  become  completely 

self-conscious;  and  States  have  satisfied  needs  far 

deeper  than  the  conscious  purposes  of  their  founders, 

which  have  apparently  been  for  the  most  part  of  the 

competitive  type,  far  deeper,  too,  than  any  economic 

interest.  The  dialectic  of  the  will  might  not,  of  itself, 

have  led  to  the  creation  of  the  State;  for  the  State 
/ 

must  appear  as  a  fact  to  many  minds  at  once,  and  not 
as  a  discovery  of  individual  experience.  But  the  State 
having  been  made,  the  human  will  can  recognize  it  as 
that  which  it  does  in  fact  want:  this  subconscious 
recognition  is  the  feeling  of  patriotism.  It  is  the 
perception  of  necessary  discontent  with  all  ephemeral 
satisfactions,  of  the  hunger  for  a  permanent  effect, 
and  of  the  truth  that  the  value  of  any  human  effect 
is  measured  by  the  dignity  and  scope  of  the  tradition 
in  which  it  lodges.  Of  themselves  as  units,  men  could 
not  create,  but  only  receive  such  a  tradition:  history 
and  a  culture  are  objects  which  no  human  being  and 
no  simultaneous  group  of  human  beings  can  manu¬ 
facture  at  will.  Yet  without  them,  their  own  worth 
sinks  below  the  human  level.  It  is  for  this  reason. 


LAWS  AND  THE  STATE 


207 


whether  they  have  known  it  or  not,  that  they  have 
placed  the  value  of  the  existence  of  the  State  above 
the  value  of  their  own  personal  existence.  To  offer 
one ’s  life  for  the  State  is  simply  to  make  the  existence 
of  the  State  one ’s  first  earthly  business ;  it  is  to  take 
part,  whether  early  or  late,  in  the  foundation  of  the 
political  entity,  without  which  no  man’s  will  to  power, 
can  find  fully  human  satisfaction. 

Thus  all  men  require  the  State,  as  a  Third  Being, 
whose  power  is  their  power,  whose  immortality  is  their 
immortality,  whose  total  mind  and  'appreciation  is 
theirs,  and  of  their  works.  It  is  only  through  the 
existence  of  such  a  Being  that  Weltgeschichte  can  in 
any  measure  become  das  W eltgericht.  It  is  only 
through  its  existence  that  the  race  can  come  to  com¬ 
plete  self-knowledge,  and  individuals  to  their  own 
through  the  self-knowledge  of  the  race.  '  It  is  not  the 
will  to  power  alone,  but  every  instinct,  that  apart  from 
the  social  order  finds  itself  bewildered,  not  free.  Its 
controlling  canopy  of  meaning  is  feeble.  Habits 
cannot  take  root  and  give  way  to  habits  better  inter¬ 
preting  it.  In  any  community,  instinct  may  find  itself 
opposed  to  custom  and  law;  but  it  still  perceives  its 
own  meaning,  perhaps  the  clearer  because  of  the 
opposition.  Destroy,  however,  the  custom,  the  perma¬ 
nence,  the  regularity,  the  social  requirement,  the  force 
of  the  authoritative  dictum,  ^‘This  is  what  you  want  ^ 
and  mean,” — destroy  these,  and  instinct  gropes  in 
emptiness,  condemned  to  many  futile  hypotheses.  In 
a  choice  of  evils,  it  is  better  to  know  yourself  at  odds 
with  your  social  order  than  not  to  know  yourself  at  all. 


208 


SOCIETY 


The  State,  I  say,  is  required  by  all  men,  as  a  neces¬ 
sary  object  for  the  will  to  power,  and  therewith  for 
every  instinct.  It  is  the  feeling  of  this  necessity  and 
its  logic,  I  take  it,  which  makes  man  the  zoon  politikon: 
this  is  the  anatomy  of  his  so-called  political  instinct. 

I  do  not  say  that  the  State,  and  certainly  not  any 
specific  State,  is  a  sufficient  condition  for  such  satis¬ 
faction.  For  there  are  States  enough  which  neither 
welcome  ideas  nor  admit  the  logic  of  non-competitive 
power.  It  is  the  necessity,  not  the  sufficiency,  of  the 
State  which  I  assert ;  and  thus  a  necessary  preference 
for  life  within  a  State  rather  than  apart  from  a  State. 

And  since  a  preference  which  is  necessary  is 
unanimous,  we  may  translate  the  psychological  neces¬ 
sity,  if  we  like,  into  a  unanimity  of  decision,  whether 
self-consciously  understood  and  admitted  or  not.  And 
herewith  we  have  the  answer  to  the  fundamental 
question  of  the  social  contract.  All  men  must  prefer 
the  State;  all  men  are  consenting  to  the  existence  of 
the  State.  And  the  primary  unanimity  necessary  to 
the  sanction  of  any  majority  is  thus  established. 

IV 

The  existence  of  the  State  allows  the  competitive 
form  of  the  will  to  power  to  assume  non-competitive 
shape.  And  through  this  fact  the  transformation  of 
the  more  special  desires  from  competitive  to  non¬ 
competitive  forms  may  begin.  The  economic  struggle 
for  existence,  and  for  better  existence,  becomes  sub¬ 
ordinated  to  what  is  now,  not  merely  as  a  pious  wish 
but  actually,  of  common  concern,  and  is  interpreted  by 


LAWS  AND  THE  STATE 


209 


it.  Thus  the  division  of  labor  and  the  process  of 
mutually  gainful  exchange  cease  to  be  purely  me¬ 
chanical^  advantages  with  egoistic  background;  they 
become  an  opportunity  for  individuality  and  unique 
talent  and  for  thought-filled  loyalties  (Durkheim).® 
Competition  is  not  abolished:  it  cannot  be  dispensed 
with,  even  as  an  instrument  of  my  necessary  interests 
in  self-knowledge  and  self-measurement.  But  if  in 
any  contest  for  material  goods,  I  fail,  while  you  gain, 
it  now  becomes  possible  for  me  to  say,  with  some 
degree  of  sincerity,  will  this  result,’’  on  the  same 
principle  that  a  sportsman,  while  preferring  the 
success  of  his  own  side  may  still  wish,  on  the  whole, 
that  the  best  side  should  win.  The  only  condition 
under  which  he  or  I  can  define  our  wish  in  this  way  is 
that  the  dispelling  of  illusions  has  become  significant : 
there  are  real  powers  to  be  gained,  and  in  order  to 
gain  a  real  power,  I  can  heartily  wish  the  destruction 
of  all  power  of  mine  that  is  accidental  and  false. 
And  whatever  I  gain  through  any  such  system  will 
have  a  value  beyond  the  fact  that  it  satisfies  an 

6  The  polyhedral  limitation  of  man  by  neighboring  men  has  long  been 
recognized  as  the  condition  in  which  the  awareness  of  his  ethical  qualities 
best  springs  up.  “Remember,”  said  the  Stoic  to  himself  when  jostled 
in  the  crowd,  ‘  ‘  Remember  what  it  is  that  you  want.  At  such  price  is 
sold  your  freedom  from  perturbation.”  Remember,  we  might  add,  in 
the  pinch  of  specialization,  at  this  cost  must  be  sold  your  own  knowledge 
of  your  destiny.  Here  again,  the  law  brings  about  the  situation  that 
justifies  it,  the  distribution  of  tasks  out  of  which  contract  can  arise  as 
an  expression  of  personal  freedom.  “For  human  civilization  is  only 
conceivable  if  there  is  a  system  among  mankind  that  assigns  each  man 
his  part  and  sets  him  his  task.”  Kohler,  Philosophy  of  Law,  p.  4, 
Eng.  tr.  In  America  we  might  have  written,  ‘  ‘  a  system  which  incites 
every  man  to  find  his  part  and  to  take  up  his  task.” 


210 


SOCIETY 


economic  need;  because  it  comes  as  a  recognition  of 
my  validity,  of  my  being  on  the  right  track,  of  the 
common  consent  to  my  enjoyment:  it  is  interpreted  in 
terms  of  my  non-competitive  will  to  power.^ 

Such  transformation,  however,  would  be  gradual  in 
an  ideal  State, — still  more  so  in  any  actual  State, 
where  the  results  of  competition  are  still  governed  by 
many  factors  irrelevant  to  personal  worth.  Where 
the  game  retains  the  general  character  of  ‘^grab,’’ 
competition  will  keep  its  predominantly  exclusive 
quality  and  its  primitive  meaning:  my  gain  is  your 
loss.  Hence  the  deformity  of  human  nature  in  the 
State  is  not  a  myth :  we  can  only  say  that  it  would  be 
still  more  deformed  apart  from  it,  and  only  by  its  aid 
can  it  become  less  deformed. 

7  In  this  way  I  should  express  Hegel ’s  meaning,  in  placing  the  stage 
of  ‘  ‘  Contract  ’  ’  in  his  system  of  right  beyond  the  stage  of  ‘  ‘  Property.  ’  ’ 


CHAPTEE  XXIX 


INSTITUTIONS  AND  CHANGE 

IDEALS  and  laws  are  fragments  of  institutions : 

institutions  are  permanent  clusters  of  ideals, 
customs,  laws.  An  institution,  like  a  law,  has  to  meet 
two  needs  and  not  one  only:  it  must  be  serviceable  to 
society ;  it  must  also  inform  a  groping  individual  what, 
according  to  racial  experience  or  national  experience, 
he  wants,  and  hold  him  to  that  meaning.  The  insti¬ 
tution  of  property  must  make  clear  to  him  the  com¬ 
pleter  sense  of  his  acquisitive  and  grabbing  instincts. 
The  institution  of  the  family  must  interpret  to  him  his 
instincts  of  sex  and  parenthood.  Individuals  do  not 
always  take  kindly  to  the  discipline  of  the  institution) 
any  more  than  to  other  discipline ;  nevertheless,  when 
the  postulates  we  have  set  up  are  complied  with,  the 
hardships  of  this  discipline  have  a  meaning:  they  are 
part  of  the  normal  remaking  of  man. 

But  the  postulates  are  never  complied  with.  The 
specific  social  arrangements  we  have  described  which 
tend  to  hold  our  institutions  to  their  rightful  purpose 
are  but  partially  successful.  We  cannot  say  that 
social  strains  as  we  find  them  are  pre-eminently 
informing  and  full  of  meaning.  If  it  should  be 
whispered  of  our  institution  of  property  that  the 
results  of  competition  and  its  hardships  are  largely 


212 


SOCIETY 


without  human  significance,  I  should  not  know  how 
to  refute  such  a  judgment.  Hegel  was  never  truer  or 
more  illuminating  than  when  he  said  that  property 
and  contract  are  essential  ingredients  in  development 
of  personality.  Yet  Hegel  was  surely  a  false  prophet 
when  he  said  that  personality  has  no  interest  in  the 
quantity  of  property  a  man  has,  its  only  concern  being 
in  the  fact  of  having  some  property.^  As  long  as 
opportunity  lurks  in  spots  and  is  given  chiefly  to  him 
that  hath;  as  long  as  there  are  dearths  of  common 
mental  food  if  not  of  other  food ;  as  long  as  barrenness 
and  absence  of  beauty  and  the  burning  out  of  health 
destroy  spiritual  hunger  itself ;  as  long  as  man  power 
can  be  reckoned  as  horse  power,  intelle'cts  and  loyalties 
flung  into  the  hopper  as  trade  assets,  and  women  and 
children  weighed  in  the  scales  of  their  present  efficiency 
without  regard  to  any  future,  not  to  say  sacred  or 
immortal  possibilities, — so  long  personality  has  a 
stake  in  the  amount  of  property  one  has  and  not  in 
the  fact  only.  And  one  who  calls  for  ^discipline,’  in 
the  sense  of  a  hearty  accept  the  social  universe” 
and  its  rules,  may  find  himself  deservedly  crying  in 
the  wilderness,  if  he  blinks  such  residual  deformations 
of  the  social  order.  Social  unrest  and  undiscipline 
are  founded  on  something  more  than  untidiness  of 
mind;  they  are  built  upon  a  belief  that  what  has 
to  be  done  had  best  be  done  by  rebellion,  overt  or 
syndicalized. 

1  Eechtsphilosophie,  §  49.  The  whole  attempt  to  eliminate  quantity 
from  the  realm  of  spirit,  in  which  Bergson  is  at  one  with  Hegel,  seems 
to  me  unequivocally  mistaken. 


INSTITUTIONS  AND  CHANGE 


213 


But  the  worst  enemy  of  a  real  grievance  has  always 
been  the  sham  grievance;  and  the  important  thing  is 
to  aim  our  shaft  at  the  right  target.  We  dare  not 
assert  that  these  residual  deformations  are  wholly 
without  meaning  for  the  freedom  of  human  nature. 
It  is  a  curiously  distorted  and  unreal  picture  of  human 
instinct  that  appears  when  we  imagine  each  craving 
satisfied  as  it  arises.  Though  such  Utopias  have  often 
been  tried,  and  are  the  food  and  drink  of  our  super¬ 
ficial  rebelliousness,  the  thing  is — I  do  not  say  prac¬ 
tically,  but  intrinsically — impossible.  I  venture  the 
statement  that  the  chief  evil  of  most  of  our  social 
hardships  is  not  that  they  exist,  but  that  they  persist 
beyond  their  time.  They  play  their  part  in  a  process 
which  elicits  the  most  subtle  and  most  characteristic 
aspects  of  human  nature;  we  can  only  estimate  this 
nature  rightly  if  we  grasp  this  process  in  its  entirety. 


I 

A  satisfied  man  is  certainly  a  man  whose  instincts 
are  satisfied;  but  yet  we  cannot  satisfy  a  man  by 
satisfying  his  instincts  in  their  severalty.  History 
is  an  immense  laboratory  for  this  experiment.  The 
cushioning  of  human  nature  is  always  proceeding 
apace,  according  to  the  means  and  inventiveness  of 
a  social  order.  It  is  accelerated  by  the  high  premiums 
paid  to  one  who  finds  new  ways  to  minister  to  old 
wants,  or  who  finds  new  wants  to  cater  to.  Whoever 
discerns  a  bump  in  the  cushion,  or  what  is  as  bad,  a 
point  of  non-support,  is  made  wealthy;  and  his  device 


214 


SOCIETY 


swiftly  runs  the  gamut  from  luxury  to  necessity.  Thus 
the  self-consciousness  of  all  tends  to  the  level  of  the 
most  epicurean  (though  there  is  always  a  privileged 
region  of  society  which  receives  first  aid  in  this 
elimination  of  discomfort).  The  history  of  all  this 
careful  study  of  ease  is  everywhere  the  same:  the 
more  our  satisfactions,  the  less  we  are  satisfied. 

Accordingly  there  is  everywhere  a  contemporary 
criticism  of  the  results  of  this  ‘^progress,’’  a  criticism 
taking  many  forms, — often  of  ascetic  practice  and 
moralizing,  or  of  a  pessimistic  denunciation  of  life 
itself  as  an  embodied  illusion,  a  cosmic  hoax.  Or 
another  alternative  dominates :  the  active  satisfactions 
of  instinct  are  set  up  at  odds  with  the  enjoying  end;^ 
a  gospel  of  active  rather  than  passive  self-sacrifice  is 
preached,  a  gospel  of  work  or  of  heroic  Uehermensch- 
lichkeit,  a  call  for  the  strenuous  life,  for  ^energism’ 
rather  than  hedonism,  or  even  a  clamor  for  war  itself 
as  an  opportunity  for  venting  the  energies  of  men. 
The  suggestions  are  many;  but  for  us,  one  inference 
is  clear. 

The  human  being  is  adapted  to  maladaptation.  This 
is  perhaps  his  supreme  point  of  fitness  to  survive  on 
this  planet.  We  are  better  fitted  to  walk  over  rough 
and  rolling  country  than  over  the  dead  level  of  city 
pavements;  a  day’s  continuous  marching  over  this 
artificially  ^adapted’  footing  leaves  us  with  a  greater 
fatigue  than  a  day’s  tramp  across  country.  Endur¬ 
ance  and  patience  are  not  in  the  first  instance  Christian 
virtues,  or  even  virtues  at  all:  they  are  biological 

2  As  ill  Holt,  The  Freudian  Wish,  p.  132,  etc. 


INSTITUTIONS  AND  CHANGE 


215 


qualities  (closely  related  to  the  ‘delayed  response^), 
fitting  us  for  dealing  with  the  unfit.  A  dog  can  hold 
for  a  long  time  the  memory  of  an  injury,  cherishing 
without  loss  the  unappeased  impulse  of  revenge. 
What  is  sporadic  in  the  dog,  is  distinguished  in  man, 
and  applies  to  all  his  major  passions.  Man  is  the 
animal  that  can  wait,  the  animal  fashioned  for  sus¬ 
pended  satisfaction.  This  power  makes  it  possible 
for  him  to  live  in  an  uncomfortable  situation  while 
deliberately  surveying  it,  and  selecting  the  thrust 
most  fitted  to  remove  it.  The  extent  of  this  power 
makes  him  in  effect  a  divided  being,  who  enjoys  in 
the  present  knowing  his  enjoyment  to  he  partial,  while 
harboring  a  larger  hunger,  destined  to  indefinite 
deferment,  yet  identified  most  closely  with  himself  and 
hence  not  suffered  to  decline.^  The  man  is  to  be  found 
in  his  Sehnsucht,  his  longing  or  yearning,  rather  than 
in  his  accomplished  ends.  Were  it  not  for  this  capacity 
to  retain  wholeness  of  prospect  in  the  midst  of  very 
fragmentary  satisfaction  (aided  by  a  large  power  for 
vicarious  enjoyment),  it  is  hardly  conceivable  that  we 
could  tolerate,  still  less  take  as  a  matter  of  course,  the 
actual  suppressions  of  talent  suffered  in  the  ordinary 
specialization  of  activity,  or  even  in  the  necessity 
(suffered  by  man  alone)  of  choosing  among  many 
possibilities  of  action  merely  because  the  narrow  time- 
channel  is  overcrowded  with  our  plans.  No  being  is 
so  domiciled  in  mutilations  as  man.  Whatever  shape 
institutions  must  take  to  give  completest  vent  to  the 
possibilities  of  his  nature,  it  would  certainly  not  be 

3  See  Brown ’s  poem,  The  Eoman  Women. 


216 


SOCIETY 


a  shape  which  allowed  him  nothing  to  criticise  or  to 
reform.  His  fitness  for  the  nnfit  must  have  its  scope. 

2.  A  completer  view  of  the  meaning  of  this  paradox 
is  gained,  I  believe,  in  what  we  have  already  learned 
of  the  structure  of  human  happiness.  The  happiness 
of  man  consists  in  the  satisfaction,  not  of  his  primary 
instincts  in  their  severalty,  but  of  his  total  or  central 
will, — the  will  to  power.  And  power,  while  it  need  not 
be  competitive,  can  only  exist  where  there  is  some¬ 
thing  to  push  against,  and  will  be  in  direct  proportion 
to  such  resistance. 

Now  the  most  humanly  satisfying  type  of  power, 
so  we  thought,  is  the  power  of  an  idea,  whether  in 
persuading  other  men  or  in  shaping  institutions.  The 
exercise  of  any  such  power  presupposes  that  in  insti¬ 
tutions  there  are  changes  to  be  made;  the  same  type 
of  maladjustment  which  might  dispose  us  to  pessimism 
may,  from  this  standpoint,  appear  as  a  necessary 
condition  of  complete  welfare.  An  unwitting,  and 
hence  all  the  more  cogent,  testimony  to  this  fact  may 
be  found  in  the  biography  of  pessimism,  in  the  curious 
circumstance  that  when  pessimism  becomes  a  doctrine 
or  propaganda,  it  brings  with  it  the  first  stages  of  its 
own  cure.  And  for  this  reason.  That  wherever 
pessimism  assumes  poetic  or  philosophic  garb,  it  has 
already  lifted  its  head  above  its  preoccupation  with 
instincts,  and  has  begun  a  campaign  in  the  world  of 
ideas,  if  only  to  decorate  with  a  cosmic  frame  its  own 
sense-experiences,  as  did  Omar  Khayyam.  The  dis¬ 
satisfied  spirit  has  begun,  in  its  fancy,  to  be  a  creator 
of  other  worlds,  having  well  shattered  its  own  to  bits, — 


INSTITUTIONS  AND  CHANGE 


217 


a  creator  of  other  polities,  natural  laws,  monopolies, 
markets,  pieties,  scenes,  adventures.  And  as  within 
itself,  the  eternal  Ideal  plows  up  the  field  of  a  sodden 
humanity,  it  discovers  in  the  career  of  its  own  con¬ 
demnation  of  life,  as  a  form  of  thought,  a  life  that  is 
worth  clinging  to.  For  the  pessimist,  it  is  just  his 
pessimism  and  its  preaching  that  is  of  value.  For  this 
is  his  edition  of  the  will  to  power  through  ideas. 

A  world  in  which  there  were  no  institutional  misfit 
would  be  a  world  in  which  such  a  will  to  power,  or 
indeed  any  other,  would  be  as  nearly  as  possible 
without  human  occupation;  it  might  provide  a  type 
of  happiness  bovine  or  angelic,  but  certainly  not 
human. 

It  would  be  natural,  but  still  perverse,  to  infer  from 
this  psychological  truth  the  desirableness  of  preserv¬ 
ing  or  courting  or  importing  a  degree  of  evil  in  order 
that  human  nature  may  gain  full  satisfaction.  Men 
find,  or  once  found,  for  example,  a  certain  happiness 
in  war:  war  is  one  way  of  bringing  the  will  to  power 
into  operation  against  social  evils,  changing  institu¬ 
tions,  or  at  least  leaving  one’s  mark  upon  them;  and 
there  are  occasions  when  because  of  abnormalities  in 
political  growth,  social  construction  must  take,  like  sur¬ 
gery,  the  paradoxical  form  of  destruction.  Yet  no  folly 
could  be  blinder  than  that  of  prescribing  or  seeking  war 
as  a  remedy  for  the  maladies  of  the  human  spirit :  for 
no  war  can  act  as  such  a  remedy  unless  it  is  just ;  and 
no  war  is  just  unless  it  is  inevitable.  The  place  of  a 
just  cause  of  war,  or  of  any  other  evil,  as  a  pou  sto  in 
the  process  which  makes  our  happiness,  does  not  logi- 


218 


SOCIETY 


cally  admit  it  to  any  other  place.  The  knight  errant 
without  a  dragon  or  other  foe  may  be  a  melancholy 
figure ;  but  he  must  still  kill  the  dragon  when  he  meets 
him,  and  not  coddle  him  along  to  keep  an  exercise  for 
his  mettle.  Likewise  with  onr  social  misfits :  he  who 
should  counsel  others,  or  himself,  to  put  up  with  such 
an  evil  because  it  affords  pleasing  activity  to  contend 
against  it,  is  guilty  of  something  more  than  a  bull. 
Evil  has  its  own  sources;  and  there  is  no  cause  for 
anxiety  lest  there  should  be  enough  of  it  to  make 
permanent  opportunity  for  the  powers  of  all  men.  For 
a  large  part  of  evil  is  an  incidental  product  of  social 
progress  itself. 

Ill 

The  improvement  of  institutions,  and  social  progress 
generally,  is  responsible  for  a  certain  amount  of  our 
awareness  of  misfit.  For  progress  enhances  sensitivity 
and  desire,  and  both  of  these  bring  an  increase  of 
suffering. 

Everyone  has  noticed  the  ineffective  efforts  of 
children  to  place  and  diagnose  their  own  pains.  They 
are  slightly  cold ;  they  do  not  know  that  they  are  cold, 
but  only  that  they  are  uncomfortable ’L  an  older 
person  must  interpret  to  them  their  own  restlessness. 
If  we  think  of  the  child  as  more  sensuous  than  the 
adult,  we  are  mistaken.  The  adult  is  much  more  alive 
to  sensations ;  he  has  keener  discrimination  and  keener 
enjoyment.  Only  an  adult  can  be  an  epicure,  or  a 
colorist,  or  a  musician.  The  child  is  incapable  of 
being  ^ ^ dissolute’ ’ ;  for  nature  entrusts  only  by  degrees 


INSTITUTIONS  AND  CHANGE 


219 


the  more  poignant  experiences  of  sense.  The  fitness 
of  the  arrangement  is  that  the  appeal  of  sense  should 
increase  only  as  the  policy  of  the  self  develops  to  judge 
that  appeal.  The  adult  is  defined  as  the  person  who 
can  let  things  hurt,  while  keeping  them  subordinate  to 
his  central  will.  On  the  march,  knowing  that  water 
is  not  to  be  had,  one  is  able  (as  the  child  is  not)  to  put 

thirst  out  of  mind;  busy,  one  forgets  his  hunger; 

•/ 

conversing,  bodily  weariness  drops  away.  Yet  the 
same  sensations,  when  they  get  their  hearing,  have  a 
definition  and  force  proportionate  to  the  force  of  the 
central  will.  Mature  self-consciousness  means  that 
every  impulse  of  a  many-stringed  nature  has  a  more 
perfect  individuality.  The  organism  can  atford  to  be 
plural  because  (and  only  so  far  as)  it  is  firmly  one. 
This  is  hardly  a  merely  happy  adaptation  of  unrelated 
forces :  it  is  more  likely  that  the  added  mentality  and 
horizon  are  direct  agents  in  promoting  the  keenness 
of  sense-experience.^ 

A  similar  relation  holds  good  between  earlier  and 
later  stages  of  culture:  the  race  is  but  gradually  let 
down  into  the  pit  of  the  knowledge  of  evil,  for  it  is  an 
incident  of  the  same  process  which,  increasing  goods 
and  their  appreciation,  we  call  progress.  Primitive 
culture  is  by  definition  a  culture  preoccupied  in  the 
external  struggle,  hence  little  free  to  delve  into  itself. 
The  same  changes  of  occupation  that  have  brought 
economic  power,  have  brought  separateness  of  interest 
and  the  self-consciousness  that  is  born  of  contrast: 

4  This  is  in  accord  with  our  view  of  the  nature  of  pleasure  and  pain. 
See  above,  pp.  81  f.  and  123,  note. 


220 


SOCIETY 


r 


herding  and  agricnltnre  make  occasion  for  setting  my 
labor  and  its  products  against  your  labor  and  its 
products,  bring  private  property  with  its  relative 
solitude  and  concentration  upon  self,  generate  the 
scheming  Jacob  and  the  thieving  Hermes.  Division 
of  labor  likewise  means  a  relative  privacy  in  the  midst 
of  the  day’s  work,  and  promotes  comparisons  of  value 
and  pains.  Money,  as  a  medium  between  production 
and  consumption,  means  the  necessity  of  enquiring 
into  my  wants  before  I  set  about  purchase  and  enjoy¬ 
ment.  All  these  things  together  mean  increased  atten¬ 
tion  to  pain  and  desire ;  quite  apart  from  the  similar 
result  of  gathering  wealth,  leisure,  and  the  hastening 
of  the  cushioning-process  above  referred  to,  with  its 
inequity,  bitterness,  and  reflection.  Those  who  fall 
behind  in  the  uneven  social  movement  are  hardly  worse 
otf  in  the  physical  life  than  in  the  wealth-less  stages ; 
for  the  most  part  they  are  better  otf — there  is  no  new 
suffering  except  in  status  and  pride.  But  old  physical 
evils  have  now  become  social  wrongs,  and  hurt  with  a 
new  pain;  the  social  difference  sharpens  self-aware¬ 
ness,  and  those  who  lose  share  as  equals  with  those 
who  gain  in  the  added  consciousness  of  the  risks  of 
fortune  in  goods  and  evils.  Thus  maladjustments 
which  were  tolerable  and  relatively  unnoticed,  because 
kept  in  the  obscure  margins  of  the  mind,  become 
intolerable,  and  begin  to  press  upon  the  shapes  of 
institutions.  The  very  process  by  which  discomforts 
are  relieved  creates  the  capacity  for  new  discomfort.® 

5  This  is  the  social  form  of  that  endless  chain  which  Schopenhauer 
found  in  the  life  of  individual  will.  But  it  is  not  a  treadmill.  The 


INSTITUTIONS  AND  CHANGE 


221 


IV 

The  circumstance  of  the  origin  of  a  part  of  social 
misfit,  created  as  it  is  by  growing  social  good,  sug¬ 
gests  that  at  least  this  part  of  evil  is  such  as  human 
nature  is  well  fitted  to  cope  with,  and  to  take  up  into 
the  activity  of  its  own  will  to  power.  And  this  will  be 
the  case  if  institutions  are  plastic  to  the  pressure  upon 
them.  The  very  misfits  of  the  social  order  will  be 
grist  for  human  nature  provided  this  postulate  is 
complied  with: 

Whatever  in  institutions  tends  at  any  time  to 
deform  human  nature  shall  he  freely  subject 
to  the  force  of  dissatisfaction  naturally 
directed  to  change  them. 

Any  residual  dissatisfaction  with  social  arrange¬ 
ments  may,  in  point  of  fact,  be  regarded  as  a  constant 
force  acting  upon  these  arrangements,  and  sure,  in 
the  course  of  time,  to  have  its  effect  upon  them.  There 
is  an  old  physical  experiment  in  which  one  is  to  put 
into  a  glass  vessel  a  mixture  of  shot,  com,  sawdust, 
Iron  filings,  etc.,  and  place  the  vessel  on  a  window 
stool  subject  to  constant  jarring  by  passing  traffic. 
In  course  of  time  the  mixed  contents  stratify  them¬ 
selves  in  order,  mth  the  densest  at  the  bottom.  It 
requires  no  great  force,  but  only  a  constant  force — 
if  there  is  sufficient  motion — to  ensure  that  any  ten- 

evils  are  in  new  places.  And  old  issues — some  of  them — are  perma¬ 
nently  settled.  We  have — as  the  flux-philosophers  tell  us — a  perpetual 
movement,  self -renewed :  but  it  is  not  as  they  suggest  a  meaningless  and 
directionless  movement. 


222 


SOCIETY 


dency  shall  reach  its  goal.  And  so,  wherever  social 
shiftings  take  place,  there  is  the  opportunity  for  the 
edging  forward  of  human  nature.  And  as  this  chang¬ 
ing  and  shifting  has  been  going  on  for  many  ages, 
the  probability  is  great  that  all  the  coarser  and  more 
serious  maladjustments  have  been  remedied,  and  that 
we  have  in  our  present  institutions  a  fit  in  sketch  of 
human  nature  in  general. 

If  institutions  have  not  always  submitted  themselves 
to  this  pressure,  it  might  seem  that  in  our  Western 
world  at  any  rate,  where  all  complaint  is  legitimate, 
every  idea  has  a  hearing,  and  the  art  of  representative, 
if  not  of  popular,  legislation  has  appeared,  a  miracle 
and  a  godsend,  legislation  participated  in  by  the 
consumers  thereof, — it  might  seem  that  all  institutions, 
after  ages  of  cakedness  had  now  finally  reached  a  state 
of  sufficient  flux.  And  in  truth,  the  chief  impediment 
to  a  free  human  nature  is  now,  not  social  unreadiness 
to  entertain  remedies  that  are  certain  to  cure,  but 
ignorance, — ignorance  of  its  own  desires  and  how  to 
secure  them. 

Legislation  must,  indeed,  always  lag  behind  the 
market-place  in  its  part  of  the  cushioning  process; 
because  its  inventions,  as  distinct  from  the  commercial 
kind,  must  be  so  far  thought  through  as  to  take  their 
place  at  once  in  an  imposing  system  of  ideas.  The 
Laws,  and  must  be  suited  to  universal  and  compulsory 
consumption.  In  both  cases  we  must  get  on  by  making 
multitudes  of  experiments  and  selecting  from  the 
results;  but  experimenting  with  a  law  must  always 
be  a  graver  thing  than  experimenting  with  a  new 


INSTITUTIONS  AND  CHANGE 


223 


breakfast  food.  Law-making  is  a  most  philosophic 
undertaking, — or  should  be.  Otherwise  it  is  either 
entangled  in  its  own  technique,  and  becomes  a  sinecure 
for  all  the  self-interest  and  intellectual  viciousness  of 
its  promoters ;  or  else,  thrown  wide  open  to  the  direct 
popular  argument  from  sore  to  salve,  it  loses  itself  in 
temporizing,  inconsistency,  and  rudderless  drifting.  ' 
Laws  can  only  be  competently  perceived  through 
institutions,  institutions  through  history,  and  history 
through  human  nature. 

Nevertheless,  a  radical  with  a  conscience  and  an 
intellect  even  moderately  equal  to  his  task  has  at  this 

f) 

hour  the  world  before  him,  a  world  desirous  as  never 
before  to  do  justice  through  its  institutions  to  all 
human  needs.  This  world  requires  to  be  convinced  " 
only  (1)  that  his  remedies  will  remedy,  and  (2)  that  f 
they  will  not  at  the  same  time  destroy  more  than  they 
create.  And  as  a  guarantee  for  this  second  and 
greater  interest,  it  will  require  in  him  an  under¬ 
standing  of  the  history  of  institutions  which  sees  in 
them  something  greater  than  shifting  arbitrariness  or 
rough  expediency  or  folly  and  oppression, — which 
appreciates  their  slow  tendency  to  bring  humanity  into 
the  full  birthright  of  its  own  freedom. 


V 

For  if  society  is  conservative,  it  is  so,  at  least  in 
part,  because  it  has  something  to  conserve. 

If  nature  could  not  allow  the  growth  of  sensitivity 
in  individuals  apart  from  their  growth  in  will,  neither 


224 


SOCIETY 


can  society,  except  at  its  peril,  lend  itself  to  the  liberty 
of  clamorons  desire  unless  there  is  sufficient  substance 
in  men^s  grasp  of  what  is  necessary  and  common. 
The  license  that  has  commonly  followed  sudden  grants 
of  liberty®  is  no  argument  against  grants  of  liberty; 
but  it  has  its  argument.  It  shows  that  men  had  con¬ 
ceived  the  restraint  that  was  over  them  too  inimically, 
not  perceiving  how  far  the  social  order  was,  in 
Eousseau^s  phrase,  compelling  them  to  be  free.  It 
shows,  then,  that  the  protest  was,  in  part,  inconsiderate 
and  unjustified;  and  that  the  conservative  party  was, 
to  just  that  extent  and  no  more,  right  in  regarding  the 
liberals  as  rebels. 

He  who  would  change  an  institution  or  experiment 
with  it  must  know  his  own  will  far  enough  to  see  that 
he  wishes  the  innovation  itself  to  be  a  conserved 
and  protected  structure.  The  only  value  any  experi¬ 
ment  can  possibly  have  is  that  something  may  be 
^established.  It  is  not  an  accident  that  the  noisiest 
criers  for  tolerance,  when  they  have  secured  free  way 
for  their  own  idea,  have  commonly  shown  a  wish  to 
enforce  that  new  idea  with  the  old  intolerance.  They 
are  but  waking  up  to  the  logic  of  their  own  ambition ; 
which  was,  not  that  institutions  should  weaken  and 
soften  or  disappear,  but  primarily  that  some  particular 
stubborn  institution  should  yield,  and  the  same  good 
force  be  spent  on  maintaining  something  worthier. 
There  is  literally  speaking  no  such  thing  as  being  too 
conservative :  but  it  is  terribly  easy  to  be  conservative 
of  the  wrong  objects.  Hence  place  must  be  made  in 

«  See  Arthur  T.  Hadley,  Freedom  and  Eesponsibility,  pp.  40  ff. 


INSTITUTIONS  AND  CHANGE 


225 


all  our  institutions  for  our  common  ignorance,  our 
need  to  learn  through  the  free  clash  of  convictions, — 
this  is  the  valid  element  in  MilPs  plea  for  social 
liberty,  the  valid  element  in  American  experimentalism. 
The  principle  is,  that 


Conserving  force  shall  he  proportionate  to 
certainty, — 


certainty  that  the  institution  furnishes  for  the  given 
society  the  best  solution  so  far  proposed  of  its  own 
problem.  This  fourth  postulate  we  must  place  beside 
the  last. 


CHAPTER  XXX 


EDUCATION 

IN  handing  on  to  a  new  generation  its  notions  of 
what  life  means,  of  what  the  several  instincts 
mean,  society  is  compelled  to  face  itself,  take  stock  of 
its  ideas,  pass  judgment  upon  itself.  The  advantage 
of  education,  therefore,  is  not  exclusively  to  the  young. 
Dealing  with  growing  minds,  society  perforce  domes¬ 
ticates  the  principle  of  growth:  for  self-consciousness 
is  never  purely  complacent,  least  of  all  when  its  eyes 
are  the  critical  and  questioning  eyes  of  a  child,  a  new 
vital  impulse,  unharnessed  and  unhought. 

It  strikes  us  as  notable — when  we  think  how  severe 
is  the  effort  of  self-review,  and  how  little  satisfying — 
f  that  society  has  never  been  content  simply  to  let  its 
young  grow  up.  Unintentional  suggestion  might  con¬ 
ceivably  have  been  left  to  do  its  work  on  a  gregarious 
and  imitative  human  substance.  To  an  unknown 
degree  children  always  educate  themselves,  and  what 
'  they  thus  do  is  well  done.  But  from  earliest  visible 
times,  educating  has  been  a  deliberate  process.  Human 
(beings  clearly  like  to  educate:  for  better  or  worse  this 
activity  is  an  especially  human  form  of  the  parental 
instinct.  It  looks  at  times  as  if  the  young  serve  simply 
as  a  stimulus  to  an  activity  of  the  elders  of  which  they, 
the  children,  become  the  helpless  objects,  an  activity 


EDUCATION  227 

which  tends  to  increase  without  limit  as  leisure  and 
the  economic  margin  grow.  Children  create  the  neces¬ 
sity,  but  also  the  exciting  opportunity,  for  society’s 
effort  to  make  vocal  the  sense  of  its  ideals,  customs, 
laws,  and  (ominous  word)  to  inculcate  them. 

But  though  a  profound  human  interest,  analytic 
self-consciousness  is  difficult  and  slow  of  growth;  and 
as  individual  self-consciousness  begins  in  the  form  of 
memory,  social  self-consciousness  begins  in  the  form 
of  history.  For  this  reason,  society  has  always  tried 
to  expound  itself  largely  through  the  story  of  its  own 
past,  its  folklore,  epic,  and  myth.  But  with  history 
there  has  been  from  the  earliest  times  a  demand  for 
images  of  that  to  which  history  leads,  images  of  a  more 
completely  interpreted  will  such  as  have  hovered 
before  the  imaginations  of  dreamers,  prophets,  re¬ 
formers.  Thus  in  the  work  of  educating,  social  self- 
consciousness  expands  until  it  envisages  more  or 
less  darkly  the  entire  tale  of  tribal  destiny  from  its 
beginnings  to  its  goal.  ^ 

Because  education  requires  this  self-conscious  look¬ 
ing  before  and  after,  a  discussion  of  education  in  the 
midst  of  a  book  on  the  remaking  of  human  nature  must 
anticipate  the  end,  and  in  some  degree  mirror  the 
entire  undertaking.  But  deliberate  educational  effort 
has  its  own  specific  part  to  play,  more  or  less  separable 
from  other  parts  of  the  remaking  process.  Bending 
over  the  younger  generation  during  the  long  years 
before  the  full  impact  of  law  and  institution  is  allowed 
to  reach  them,  transmitting  its  wishes  through  the 
protecting  (and  no  doubt  refracting)  media  of  family 


228 


SOCIETY 


and  school,  speaking  at  least  as  mnch  through  what  it 
is  as  through  what  it  tries  to  say  for  itself,  society  in 
educating  is  exercising  a  function  whose  purpose,  like 
that  of  most  natural  organs,  we  but  gradually  become 
fully  aware  of.  In  our  day  education  affects  the 
technical;  it  becomes  highly  doctrinaire;  it  is  the 
jousting  place  of  all  the  new  realisms,  pragmatisms, 
behaviorisms,  psychologisms  of  all  brands.  We  need 
to  think  anew  of  the  nature  of  this  organic  function 
and  of  its  control. 

I  ' 

There  was  a  time  when  we  might  have  defined  educa¬ 
tion  as  a  continuation  of  the  reproductive  process. 
Physical  reproduction  supplies  more  of  the  same 
species :  social  reproduction  supplies  more  of  the  same 
tribe  or  nation.  Prom  the  beginning  of  organized 
social  life,  each  people  has  regarded  its  own  folkways 
as  an  asset,  distinctive  and  sacred;  in  imposing  them 
upon  the  new  brood  it  has  supposed  itself  to  be  con¬ 
ferring  its  most  signal  benefit.  And  the  newcomers, 
most  of  them,  seem  to  have  adopted  this  view:  they 
have  as  little  fancied  it  a  hardship  that  the  social  order 
should  impose  its  type  upon  them  as  that  their  parents 
should  have  given  them  their  physical  image.  It  has 
simply  completed  the  definition  of  what  they  are. 

We  have  not  outgrown  this  conception  of  education. 
We  still  speak  of  it  as  a  ‘preparation  for  life,’  under¬ 
standing  by  ‘life’  a  certain  kind  of  life,  that  which 
marks  out  our  own  group  or  nation.  It  still  seems  to 
us  the  essential  failure  of  education  that  our  children 


EDUCATION 


229 


should  find  themselves  a  misfit  in  ‘life’;  so  we  steer 
them  toward  the  existing  grooves  of  custom  as  a 
matter  of  duty — I  do  not  say  of  duty  to  society,  but  of 
duty  to  the  children  themselves.  Discussing  the  place 
of  classics  in  Prussian  schools,  Kaiser  Wilhelm  II  said 
(December,  1890),  “It  is  our  duty  to  educate  young 
men  to  become  young  Germans,  and  not  young  Greeks 
or  Eomans.”  And  what  do  other  nations  expect  of 
their  schools,  if  not  to  bring  forth  after  their  kind? 
What  are  the  facts  of  our  own  practice? 

We  certainly  do  not  put  all  traditions  on  the  same 
level,  any  more  than  all  languages  or  all  sets  of  laws. 
But  neither  we  nor  any  other  modern  nation  limits  its 
offering  to  its  own  type.  We  train  our  wards  to  some 
extent  to  become  young  Greeks,  Eomans,  Britons, 
Frenchmen,  Germans,  Asiatics,  as  well  as  young 
Americans.  We  teach  them  history  and  geography, 
not  indifferently,  but  still  to  a  liberal  distance  from 
our  own  center  of  space  and  time.  We  pave  the  way 
to  literatures  other  than  our  own.  We  discreetly 
announce  the  existence  of  other  religions.  Better  than 
this,  we  offer  them  at  the  outset  the  free  and  primitive 
worlds  of  fairyland  and  legend  where  all  desires  find 
satisfaction.  We  give  them  poetry  and  drama,  dealing 
with  social  orders  invitingly  different  from  the  actual 
order,  such  as  must  set  tingling  any  cramped  or 
unused  nerve  in  growing  nature,  and  so  give  voice  to 
the  latent  rebel  in  our  youth,  or  the  latent  reformer. 
Our  homes  and  schools  habitually  look  out  upon  ‘the 
world’  not  as  a  decorous  and  settled  place,  but  as  a 
comparatively  perilous  and  unfinished  place,  calling 


230 


SOCIETY 


for  much  courage  and  chivalrous  opposition,  requiring 
much  change.  The  career  of  the  hero  who  redresses 
an  untold  number  of  wrongs  still  hovers  as  a  wholly 
accessible  destiny  before  the  fancies  of  our  childhood. 
To  this  extent,  we  warn  our  successors-to-be  against 
our  own  fixity,  put  the  world  before  them,  and  set  them 
free  from  our  type.^ 

And  to  this  extent,  we  recognize  that  education  has 
two  functions  and  not  one  only.  It  must  communicate 
the  type,  and  it  must  provide  for  growth  beyond  the 
type.  It  is  not  a  mere  matter  of  spiritual  reproduc¬ 
tion,  unless  we  take  reproduction  in  the  wider  sense 
as  an  opportunity  to  begin  over  again  and  do  better, 
the  locus  not  alone  of  heredity  but  of  variation  and  of 
the  origin  of  new  species. 

But  why  insist  at  all  upon  the  reproducing  of  the 
old  type  ?  and  why  limit  to  ^  ^  this  extent  ’  ’  the  scope  of 
the  liberty  of  choice?  Why  do  we  not  display  with 
complete  equableness  all  views  of  the  best  way  of  life 
and  say,  ^‘Now’  choose;  think  out  your  course  for 
yourselves’^?  Instead  of  teaching  our  children  our 
morality,  why  not  teach  them  ethical  science?  instead 

1  Admitting  all  the  abuses  of  mechanical  and  wholesale  popular 
schooling,  I  must  decline  to  believe  as  the  primary  truth  of  any  modern 
nation  that  “It  is  not  in  the  spirit  of  reverence  that  education  is  con¬ 
ducted  by  States  and  Churches  and  the  great  institutions  that  are  sub¬ 
servient  to  them”  (Bertrand  Eussell,  Principles  of  Social  Eeconstruction, 
p.  158;  reprinted  in  America  under  the  misleading  title,  Why  Men 
Fight).  I  know  of  no  society  which  fails  to  wish  its  children  a  better 
life  than  its  own.  And  especially  at  this  moment,  in  the  war-ridden 
states  of  Europe  a  deep  and  pathetic  tenderness  toward  childhood  is 
evident,  as  if  to  say,  “We  have  made  a  mess  of  our  world:  yours  mi^t 
be  a  better  one.  ’  ’  This  spirit  is  making  itself  felt  in  thorough  revisions 
of  the  plan  of  education  in  France  and  England. 


EDUCATION 


231 


of  religion,  metaphysical  criticism?  instead  of  our 
political  faith,  political  philosophy?  instead  of  our 
manners,  the  principles  of  assthetics?  In  short,  why 
not  make  thinkers  of  them  rather  than  partisans? 
Why  not  abolish  the  last  remnant  of  that  ancestor- 
worship  which  dwarfs  the  new  life  by  binding  it  to 
the  passing  life? 

The  answer  is,  we  have  no  right  to  aim  at  any 
smaller  degree  of  freedom  than  this,  nor^  for  the  most 
part,  do  we:  but  before  a  completely  free  will  can  be 
brought  into  being,  it  is  first  necessary  to  bring  into 
being  a  will.  The  manifest  absurdity  of  asking  a  child 
to  choose  his  own  moral  code  and  the  rest  is  due  not 
alone  to  the  fact  that  he  lacks  the  materials  to  choose 
from,  but  still  more  to  the  fact  that  he  does  not  know 
what  he  wants.  The  first  task  o|  education  is  to  bring 
his  full  will  into  existence.  And  this  can  only  be  done 
by  a  process  so  intimate  that  in  doing  it  the  type  is 
inevitably  transmitted.  The  whole  meaning  of  educa¬ 
tion  is  wrapped  up  in  this  process  of  evoking  the  will ; 
and  apart  from  it  nothing  in  education  can  be  either 
understood  or  placed. 

II 

The  will  can  develop  only  as  the  several  instincts 
wake  up  and  supply  examples  of  the  goods  and  evils 
of  experience.'  To  bring  instincts  into  action,  all  that 
any  social  environment  need  do  (and  almost  all  it  can 
do^)  is  to  supply  the  right  stimulus,  together  with  an 

2  Noting  in  passing  that  the  exhibition  of  instinctive  behavior  often 
acts  by  suggestion  as  a  substitute  for  the  direct  stimulus;  and  in  gre- 


232 


SOCIETY 


indication  of  what  the  stimnlns  means.  A  response 
cannot  be  compelled ;  for  whatever  is  compelled  is  not 
a  response.  No  behavior  to  which  we  might  drive  a 
child  wonld  be  play:  if  playthings  and  playing  com¬ 
rades  fail  to  bring  ont  the  play  in  him,  we  are  all  but 
helpless.  A  response  can  only  be  e-duced. 

If  we  were  dealing  with  an  organism  whose  instincts 
we  did  not  know,  the  educing  process  would  consist 
in  exposing  that  organism,  much  as  one  would  expose 
a  photographic  plate,  to  various  environments  to  see 
which  ones  would  elicit  reactions.  And  in  dealing  with 
a  new  human  being,  always  unknown,  the  work  of 
educing  his  instincts  would  likewise  consist  in  exposing 
him  to  those  stimuli  which  may  appeal  to  him, — to 
speech,  to  things  graspable  or  ownable,  to  color,  form, 
music,  etc.,  to  the  goods  of  cleanliness,  truthfulness, 
and  the  like.  What  powers  any  child  has  of  respond¬ 
ing  to  these  things,  whether  or  how  far  they  will  take 
in  his  case,  neither  he  nor  we  can  know  until  he  has 
been  exposed — and  perhaps  persistently  and  painfully 
exposed — to  specific  examj)les  of  these  goods. 

This  exposure  is  the  first  work  of  education. 

And  the  first  peril  of  education  is  not  that  the 
child’s  will  will  be  overborne,  but  that  through  no 
exposure  or  inadequate  exposure  to  the  objects  that 
would  call  out  his  best  responses,  he  achieves  only  half 
a  will  instead  of  a  whole  one,  a  will  partly-developed 

garious  animals  as  an  alternative  stimulus.  And  further,  just  as  artificial 
respiration  may  lead  to  actual  breathing,  so  a  mechanical  repetition  of 
instinctive  behavior  even  under  duress  may  sometimes  work  backward, 
as  if  breaking  a  way  though  an  occluded  channel,  to  set  an  instinctive 
impulse  free.  See  above,  p.  148,  note. 


EDUCATION 


233 


and  therefore  feebly-initiative,  casual,  spiritless,  unin¬ 
terested.  If  I  were  to  name  the  chief  defect  of  con¬ 
temporary  education,  it  would  not  be  that  it  turns  out 
persons  who  believe  and  behave  as  their  fathers  did — 
it  does  not :  but  that  it  produces  so  many  stunted  wills, 
wills  prematurely  grey  and  incapable  of  greatness,  not 
because  of  lack  of  endowment,  but  because  they  have 
never  been  searchingly  exposed  to  what  is  noble, 
generous,  and  faith-provoking. 

Mr.  Be:ptrand  Russell  voices  a  common  objection  to 
immersing  the  defenceless  younger  generation  in  the 
atmosphere  of  the  faiths  religious  and  political  that 
have  made  our  nations.^  Has  he  considered  whether 
in  these  faiths  there  lies  anything  more  than  the  wilful 
choice  of  an  unproved  theory,  anything  of  human  value 
such  as  a  growing  will  might,  for  complete  liberation, 
require  exposure  to?  Politically  guided  education,  he 
feels,  is  dangerous,  and  so  it  is.  But  I  venture  to  say 
that  the  greatest  danger  of  politically  guided  educa¬ 
tion,  particularly  in  democracies  which  feel  themselves 
obliged  in  their  educational  enterprises  to  cancel  out 
against  one  another  the  divergent  opinions  of  various 
parties,  is  that  the  best  places  will  he  left  hlanU, 
because  it  is  on  the  most  vital  matters  that  men  most 
differ.  The  pre-war  experience  of  France  in  secu¬ 
larized  education  has  furnished  a  striking  instance  of 
the  principle  that  in  education  a  vacuum  is  equivalent 
to  a  negation.  In  one  case  as  in  the  other,  instinct  is 
robbed  of  its  possibility  of  response. 

Children  have  rights  which  education  is  bound  to 

3  Principles  of  Social  Reconstruction,  chapter  on  Education. 


234 


SOCIETY 


respect.  The  first  of  these  rights  is  not  that  they  be 
left  free  to  choose  their  way  of  life,  i.e.,  to  make  bricks 
without  either  straw  or  clay.  Their  first  right  is  that 
they  be  offered  something  positive,  the  best  the  group 
has  so  far  found.  Against  errors  and  interested 
propaganda  the  growing  will  has  natural  protection: 
it  has  no  protection  against  starvation,  nor  against 
the  substitution  of  inferior  food  for  good  food.  No 
social  authority  can  make  pain  appear  pleasure.  No 
social  authority  can  make  a  stimulus  of  something 
which  has  no  value.  But  it  is  quite  possible,  through 
crowding  out  the  better  by  the  worse,  to  produce  a 
generation  which  thinks  ^  ^  push-pin  as  good  as  poetry,  ^  ^ 
prefers  bridge  to  sunsets,  or  worships  the  golden  calf. 

Ill 

But  there  is  a  radical  and  obvious  difference  between 
exposing  a  plate  to  the  light  and  exposing  a  human 
instinct  to  a  possible  stimulus.  Anybody  can  expose 
the  plate,  a  machine  can  expose  it:  the  operation  and 
the  stimulus  are  alike  mechanical.  But  for  the  human 
being  there  is  many  a  possible  stimulus  which  lies 
partly  or  wholly  outside  the  world  of  physics.^  In 
these  regions  of  experience,  neither  a  machine  nor  any 
random  person  can  achieve  an  exposure. 

It  is  true  that  for  most  of  the  ^ units  of  behavior’ 
which  men  have  in  common  with  the  rest  of  the  animal 

4  As  an  example,  the  stimulus  of  the  ‘instinct  of  curiosity’;  see  p.  62, 
above.  It  is  important  to  bear  in  mind  through  this  discussion  that  the 
‘stimulus’  of  an  instinct  is  understood  to  be  ‘the  perception  of  the  end 
as  the  meaning  of  the  initial  situation  ’ ;  p.  42,  above. 


EDUCATION 


235 


kingdom,  the  stimuli  are  strewn  about  in  such  profu¬ 
sion  that  exposure  takes  place  with  little  or  no  need 
for  social  guidance.  It  is  a  commentary  upon  the 
artificiality  of  our  urban  society  that  a  Mme.  Montes- 
sori  is  required  to  remind  us  of  the  need  (among  other 
things)  of  sufficient  and  varied  tactile  stimuli  in  early 
years.  Haphazard  encounters  with  strings,  stones, 
and  sticks,  now  kept  carefully  ‘cleaned  up^  and  out 
of  reach,  aided  by  personal  struggles  with  the  more 
exact  weapons  of  toilet  and  table,  once  provided  most 
of  the  stimuli  which  we  must  now  measure  out  with 
psychological  ingenuity.  Hereby  we  are  making  no 
doubt  essential  progress  in  self-consciousness ;  but  for 
young  children,  country  life  and  self-help  are  still 
the  unmatched  educators  of  their  primary  instincts. 

But  for  the  specifically  human  developments  of 
instinct,  the  stimuli  are  commonly  either  non-existent 
or  imperceptible  except  through  the  behavior  of  other 
human  beings  who  are  actively  responding  to  them. 
Of  these,  the  principle  holds  that  no  one  can  expose  a 
child  to  that  stimulus  unless  he  himself  appreciates  it. 
Imagine  to  what  experience  an  unmusical  person  might 
expose  a  child  under  the  name  of  music.  Consider 
what  it  is  to  which  many  a  human  being  has  been 
exposed  under  the  name  of  mathematics.  To  many 
the  true  statement  that  number  is  an  object  of  pro¬ 
found  instinctive  interest'^  would  appear  a  mockery 
because,  having  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  Philistines 
in  the  days  of  their  initiation  into  the  world  of  number, 

5  As  an  ingredient  in  the  satisfaction  of  various  central  instincts; 
see  above,  p.  64. 


236 


SOCIETY 


they  have  never  so  much  as  come  into  view  of  its 
peculiar  beauties. 

But  it  is  especially  with  regard  to  those  modes  of 
interpreting  instinct  which  constitute  our  moral  and 
religious  tradition  that  this  principle  becomes  impor- 
J;ant.  For  no  one  can  so  much  as  present  the  meaning 
of  an  idea  of  this  kind, — let  us  say  of  a  particular  way 
of  meeting  pain  or  injustice,  a  Spartan  way,  a  Stoical 
way,  or  some  other, — unless  he  himself  finds  satis¬ 
faction  in  that  idea.  And  then  it  follows,  since  sat¬ 
isfaction  and  happiness  are  highly  convincing  states 
of  mind  (understanding  by  happiness  not  tempera¬ 
mental  gaiety,  but  the  subconscious  and  hence  serious 
affirmation  of  life  as  a  whole  by  the  will  as  a  whole), — 
it  follows  that  children  will  tend  to  adopt  the  beliefs 
of  those  whom  they  instinctively  recognize  as  happy, 
and  of  no  others. 

This  is  both  a  protection  to  children  and  a  danger. 
A  protection:  for  surely  the  child  who  has  found  no 
hero  in  the  flesh  from  among  the  supporters  of  the 
existing  order  is  in  no  danger  of  being  overborne  by 
that  order.  If  a  tradition  can  get  no  great  believers, 
it  will  die  a  natural  death.  If  the  wilder  people  are 
genuinely  the  happier, — Bohemians,  declassees,  gay 
outlawry  in  general, — it  is  they  who  will  convince  and 
be  followed.  If  sobriety,  self-restraint,  all  the  awful 
and  respectable  virtues’’  have  a  value,  whether  as 
necessary  nuisances  on  the  way  to  some  great  good, 
or  as  goods  on  their  own  account,  they  will  find  a 
following  through  the  persons  of  those  who  are 


EDUCATION  237 

enamored  of  those  goods,  so  far  as  such  persons 
become  known. 

If  the  social  group  is  simple,  any  genuine  values  it 
has  will  be  likely  to  find  their  way  into  new  minds. 
One  of  the  most  marvelous  examples  of  social  con¬ 
servation  has  been  the  transmission  of  folksong;  yet 
if  any  tradition  has  been  spontaneous  and  unforced, 
this  has  been.  But  in  our  modern  complex  and 
split-up  societies,  the  chances  grow  large  that  many 
children  are  never  reached  by  our  b^st  ideas,  trans¬ 
mitted  through  ah  overworked  and  not  markedly 
happy  teaching  body.^ 

In  any  case,  what  is  transmitted  is  that  intangible 
thing  we  call  belief,  the  effective  belief  of  the  teaching 
surface  of  society.  And  since  the  type  of  any  society 

®  If  the  chief  excellence  of  teachers  in  a  parsimonious  democracy  is 
to  spend  much  time,  teach  as  many  as  possible,  make  neat  reports  show¬ 
ing  high  averages  of  prize-made  punctuality,  and  ‘prepare’  their  charges 
for  the  enjoyment  of  something  else  than  what  is  before  them,  we  shall 
produce  and  deserve  little  else  than  a  constitutionally  weary  and  common¬ 
place  citizenry. 

The  idea  of  ‘preparation,’  an  indispensable  workshop  notion  for  those 
who  consider  educational  systems  as  a  whole,  is  a  disease  when  it  be¬ 
comes  prominent  in  the  minds  of  the  children.  What  children,  and  poets, 
never  forget  is  that  “Life  is  now!  the  center  of  the  universe  is  here! 
the  middle  point  of  all  time,  this  moment !  ’  ’  If  children  are  led,  for 
example,  to  read  good  writers  in  order  that  they  may  hereafter  enjoy 
good  writers,  their  chance  is  lost.  The  only  justifiable  reason  for  putting 
a  good  writer  into  their  hand  is  that  he  is  good  and  can  be  enjoyed  then 
and  there.  I  do  not  say  understood:  for  children  have  great  powers  of 
living  on  a  future  understanding. 

That  the  first  qualification  of  a  teacher  is  to  be  happy  has  perhaps 
never  been  propounded  as  an  educational  doctrine.  Yet  it  is  a  fair 
question  whether  truth  has  been  more  harmed  by  those  who  are  wrong 
but  happy  (if  there  are  any  such)  than  by  those  who  are  right  but 
unhappy. 


238 


SOCIETY 


is  chiefly  defined  by  its  prevalent  beliefs,  we  see  why 
it  is  that  the  process  of  bringing  a  will  into  existence 
inevitably  tends,  as  we  said,  to  reproduce  the  type. 

Berbaps  it  is  the  best  of  our  values  that  lead  the 
most  perilous  lives,  are  most  easily  lost  or  defaced  in 
the  relay  of  the  generations:  but  determination  and 
system  will  not  save  them.  Ethics  and  religion  must 
be  removed  from  set  courses  of  public  instruction 
unless  the  believers  are  there ;  for  mechanical  teaching 
of  these  things  is  worse  than  none.  Every  society  has, 
beside  its  rebels  who  are  frequently  persons  of  great 
faith,  many  members  who  have  dragged  themselves 
barely  to  the  edge  of  a  creed ;  what  such  persons  trans¬ 
mit  is  hardly  that  creed,  but  a  pestilential  belief  in  the 
moral  painfulness  of  one^s  intellectual  duty. 

But  given  the  believer,  the  more  vigorous  and 
affirmative  bis  belief,  the  better.  Life  becomes  worth 
living  according  to  the  greatness  of  faith,  not  the  lack 
of  it.  If  any  element  of  a  great  faith  proves  wrong, 
its  greatness  survives  as  a  standard  to  be  reached  by 
what  displaces  it.  According  to  this  measure  will  be 
the  dimension  of  the  wills  we  develop. 

IV 

But  beside  the  dimension  of  the  will,  the  proportion 
of  the  will  is  also  a  matter  of  importance ;  and  to  this 
end  it  is  the  business  of  education  to  see  that  none 
of  the  more  general  instincts  or  groups  of  instincts 
have  an  inadequate  exposure. 

There  is  in  the  human  being,  as  we  saw,  a  large 


EDUCATION 


239 


power  of  substitution  among  the  instipcts,  and  tliis 
power  increases  as  the  central  current  of  the  will 
grows  strong.  Hence  as  children  get  older  it  becomes 
less  and  less  important  that  all  the  possible  ‘units  of 
behavior^  should  be  proportionately  called  forth.  It 
is  a  pity,  to  be  sure,  if  the  climbing  period  goes  by 
without  a  fair  exposure  to  trees,  fences,  staircases, 
shed  roofs  and  the  like;  but  the  loss  is  not  irremedi¬ 
able.  If  however  any  of  the  more  general  instincts 
lies  long  latent,  as  in  the  case  of  a  delay  in  the  use  of 
language  which  might  retard  the  development  of 
sociability,  the  loss  is  more  serious.  Let  me  speak 
of  some  of  the  questions  of  proportion  which  present 
conditions  of  life  more  especially  raise. 

A  fair  balance  ought  to  be  kept  between  the  instincts 
that  deal  with  persons  and  those  that  deal  with  things. 
The  small  arts  developed  by  handling,  exploring, 
controlling,  making,  and  owning  things  must  furnish 
all  the  themes  for  the  give-and-take  of  primitive 
sociability :  only  through  the  administering  of  such  all- 
important  privileges  as  those  of  ‘hollering  down  our 
rain  bar’L  or  ‘climbing  our  apple  tree^  can  the  various 
shades  of  amity  and  hostility  be  realized.  The  child  ^s 
social  life  will  run  shallow  unless  his  physical  interests 
are  vigorous.  It  is  true  that  the  deeper  his  roots 
strike  into  the  material  world  and  its  mastery,  the 
more  occasion  there  is  for  pugnacity,  the  more  difficult 
the  personal  problems  aroused;  but  also,  the  more 
significant  the  solutions  when  they  come.  It  is  a  mis¬ 
take  to  try  to  impose  a  premature  altruism  upon  these 
concerns  in  mine  and  thine.  The  two  sets  of  impulses. 


240 


SOCIETY 


competitive  and  non-competitive,  must  grow  side  by 
side  and  to  some  extent  independently  before  they 
are  ready  to  recognize  their  relationship.  Meantime, 
the  instincts  occupied  with  things  indicate  by  their 
strength  the  degree  of  mastery  over  nature  we  are 
destined  to ;  and  the  qualities  developed  in  their  exer¬ 
cise  are  the  most  primitive  elements  of  ‘character^ 
and  the  foundation  of  all  likeableness.'^  Thus  what 
these  instincts  seem  to  take  from  social  quality,  they 
pay  back  again. 

But  between  the  possessive  and  masterful  interest 
in  things  and  the  friendly  interest  in  persons  there  is 
a  middle  term,  most  important  in  the  proportioning 
of  the  will.  I  mean  a  companionable  interest  in  nature. 
Being  ^  alone  ^  has  possibilities  of  occupation  that 
come  not  merely  from  hands  and  senses  but  from 
thought  and  fancy.  A  child’s  fear  of  solitude  is  an 
evidence  that  his  imagination  has  already  begun  to 
work  in  this  direction;  and  what  is  needed  in  order 
to  reassure  him  is  not  that  nature  should  be  deper¬ 
sonalized,  but  that  his  instinctive  personifying  trait 
should  be  made  a  resource.  The  growing  self,  if  it  is 
to  acquire  depth,  has  need  of  a  region  not  intruded 
upon  by  other  human  personalities,  not  even  by  such 
as  move  across  the  stage  of  history  and  literature. 

7  What  attracts  us  in  another,  old  or  young,  is  always  the  sign  not  of 
animal  vitality  primarily  but  of  validity,  the  quality  of  spirit  which  is 
challenged  and  evoked  in  the  elementary  struggles  with  the  inertia  and 
refractoriness  of  physical  things :  resourcefulness,  persistence,  grit, 
integrity,  fertility  of  design.  Power  over  nature  is  the  most  summary 
expression  of  what  a  spirit  ought  to  have,  and  does  have  in  proportion 
to  its  degree  of  reality:  it  is  this  degree  of  reality  which  we  most  imme¬ 
diately  perceive  in  another,  and  which  is  the  foundation  of  likeableness. 


EDUCATION 


241 


While  he  is  in  this  human  company  th6  initiative  of 
his  own  thoughts  is  perpetually  broken:  the  impulses 
of  mental  play,  as  sensitive  as  they  are  precious, 
may  easily  be  discouraged  and  weakened  unless  an  en¬ 
vironment  is  found  which  is  at  once  an  escape  and  a 
stimulus.  Our  over-socialized  city-bred  children  often 
lose  the  capacity  to  be  ‘by  themselves’  without  intol¬ 
erable  tedium.  Normally,  however,  ‘nature’  means 
much  more  than  permission  to  ruminate :  it  is  a  posi¬ 
tive  educing  force.  For  nature  appears  to  humanity 
everywhere,  and  early  to  children,  as  (more  or  less 
cheerfully)  enigmatic:  it  is  deceptively  quiescent,  or 
it  is  eventful  but  with  invisible  agency;  it  teases  out 
essays  in  interpretation.  Society  drives  away  the 
muse, — it  ‘amuses’  us:  but  in  the  presence  of  nature 
the  thread  of  our  fancies  is  drawn  at  once  into  the 
living  fabric  of  the  world,  making  connection  in  the 
freest,  and  I  believe  not  untruest  way,  with  the  spirit 
that  dwells  there.  Thus  the  foundations  are  being 
laid  for  a  thoughtfulness  more  than  literal  in  its 
quality,  which  may  ripen  in  one  direction  into  scien¬ 
tific  observation  and  hypothesis,  in  another  toward 
merging  with  the  poetic  and  animistic  gropings  of  the 
race.®  In  any  case,  since  the  imagination  is  actively, 
not  passively  engaged,  and  the  mental  furniture  is 

8  In  making  this  plea  for  the  encouragement  of  an  anthropomorphic 
imagination,  I  am  shamelessly  favoring  what  Professor  Thorstein  Veblen 
has  called  the  “  self -contamination  of  the  sense  of  workmanship’’  (The 
Instinct  of  Workmanship,  pp.  52  ff.),  a  deliberate  mixing  of  the  per¬ 
sonal  and  impersonal  phases  of  the  world  which  it  may  prove  difRciilt 
later  on  to  resolve  into  a  wholly  naturalistic  dcadness  of  attitude  toward 
the  physical.  I  do  so  with  my  eyes  open. 

What  and  how  much  solitude  may  mean  to  any  child  cannot  be  told 


242 


SOCIETY 


one  own,  one  returns  to  his  social  world  a  little  more 
than  before  a  self.  An  individual  I-think  is  growing 
which  in  time  may  have  its  own  contribution  to  the 
W e-think  of  the  crowd. 

But  whether  we  thus  deal  with  the  ^I-think,’  or  as 
above  with  the  ^I-own,^  it  is  clear  that  we  are  at  the 
^ame  time  dealing  with  the  ^I-can.’  The  will  to  power, 
because  of  its  central  position,  is  being  educated  in 
all  education.  But  this  fact  does  not  imply  that  the 
will  to  power  needs  no  distinct  attention.  It  has  its 
own  technique  to  acquire,  and  its  own  interpretation 
to  find:  and  everything  in  the  child ^s  further  career 
depends  on  how  these  problems  are  solved.  Like  all 
the  more  particular  forms  of  instinct  the  will  to  power 
needs  to  be  developed  by  deliberate  exposure  to  its 
own  kind  of  stimulus, — difficulty,  and  to  its  own  type 
of  good, — success. 

Play,  we  have  said,  may  be  regarded  as  practice  in 
success.  The  play  obstacles  are  so  chosen  as  to  be 
surmountable ;  the  play-things  oppose  no  ultimate 
resistance  to  their  owner.  But  that  which  seems  the 

in  advance:  education  can  only  effect  the  exposure,  not  at  first  without 
guidance,  and  certainly  not  without  noting  results. 

Let  me  quote  from  a  letter  written  by  Sir  Eabindranath  Tagore  to 
Mr.  Frederic  Eose,  Stockton  Heath,  England.  ‘‘Mornings  and  evenings 
(speaking  of  his  school  in  Bolpur)  fifteen  minutes’  time  is  given  them 
to  sit  in  an  open  space,  composing  their  minds  for  worship.  We  never 
watch  them  and  ask  questions  about  what  they  think  in  those  times,  but 
leave  it  entirely  to  themselves,  to  the  spirit  of  the  place  and  the  time  and 
the  suggestion  of  the  practice  itself.  We  rely  more  upon  the  subconscious 
influence  of  Nature,  of  the  association  of  the  place  and  the  daily  life 
of  worship  that  we  live  than  on  any  conscious  effort  to  teach  them.” 
The  same  principle  in  a  different  mood  is  found  in  John  Boyle  O ’Emily’s 
poem  ‘  ‘  At  School.  ’  ’ 


EDUCATION 


243 


opposite  of  play,  the  set  task,  is  needful  to  provide  the 
complete  stimulus  for  this  instinct.  We  need  not  open 
the  old  debate  whether  the  will  is  best  trained  through 
what  one  spontaneously  likes  or  is  interested’  in  or 
through  the  opposite.  Kant  and  William  James  are 
far  apart  on  many  matters;  but  in  this  they  seem  to 
agree,  that  for  the  sake  of  habitual  freedom  from  the 
domination  of  feelings  it  is  well  to  do  voluntarily  a 
certain  amount  of  what  is  hard  or  distasteful.  But  I 
presume  that  they  would  equally  agree  that  there  is 
little  value  in  effort  for  effort’s  sake:  there  is  as  little 
to  be  gained  from  pure  difficulty  as  from  pure  ease. 
The  right  stimulus  for  any  instinct  is  Hhe  perception 
of  the  goal  as  the  meaning  of  the  beginning’ the  right 
stimulus  of  the  will  to  power  is  the  glimmer  of  a 
possible  success,  which  is  another  name  for  hope.  The 
only  significant  difficulties,  for  purposes  of  education, 
are  those  accompanied  by  hope.  It  is  thus  as  idle  a 
procedure  to  exhort  the  child  halted  by  an  obstacle 
to  ‘‘work  it  out  for  himself”  as  it  is  to  do  the  work 
for  him :  there  is  no  more  dehumanizing  state  of  mind 
than  the  perpetuation  of  directionless  effort  in  a 
despairful  mood.  Education  in  such  a  case  consists 
in  supplying  the  halted  mind  with  a  method  of  work 
and  some  examples  of  success.  There  are  few  more 
beautiful  miracles  than  that  which  can  be  wrought  by 
leading  a  despairing  child  into  a  trifling  success :  and 
there  are  few  difficulties  whose  principle  cannot  be 
embodied  in  such  simple  form  that  success  is  at  once 
easy  and  revealing.  And  by  increasing  the  difficulty 

9  P.  42,  above.  ^ 


244 


SOCIETY 


by  serial  stages,  the  small  mil,  under  the  cumulative 
excitement  of  repeated  and  mounting  success,  may  find 
itself  far  beyond  the  obstacle  that  originally  checked  it. 

Such  use  of  mental  momentum  is  a  practice  which 
I  believe  all  instinctive  teachers  resort  to.  And  it 
shows  incidentally  how  false  a  guide  interest  ^  may  be 
in  education  when  taken  as  we  find  it.  Lack  of  interest 
in  any  subject  depends,  for  children,  far  less  on  the 
nature  of  the  subject  than  on  a  persistent  thwarting 
of  the  will  to  power  in  dealing  with  it;  interest  accom¬ 
panies  any  task  in  which  a  mental  momentum  is  estab¬ 
lished.  But  momentum  can  be  gained  only  when 
difficulty  can  be  indefinitely  increased,  so  that  the  very 
conditions  which  may  discourage,  drive  away  interest, 
and  even  induce  loathing  of  a  subject,  are  conditions 
which  make  great  interest  possible  when  the  will  to 
power  is  called  into  lively  action.  We  may  put  it 
down  as  a  maxim  of  education,  so  far  as  interest  is 
concerned, — Without  difficulty^  no  lasting  interest. 

But  after  the  education  derived  from  play,  and  from 
the  set  task  with  its  relatively  prompt  conclusion,  the 
will  to  power  has  still  to  learn  to  deal  with  the  situation 
of  indefinite  delay.  If  it  is  hard  to  point  out  what 
instinctive  satisfaction  can  be  found  in  a  deferred 
success,  it  would  be  hazardous  to  assert  that  there 
is  no  such  satisfaction,  when  we  consider  that  the 
greatest  of  human  ends  are  such  as  are  never  finally 
achieved.  The  imagination,  the  I-think,  would  be 
cramped  in  any  house  narrower  than  infinity;  and  it 
is  through  them  that  the  will  to  power  can  be  led  to 
its  next  stage  of  development.  By  the  aid  of  imagi- 


EDUCATION 


245 


nation  I  can  count  it  a  success  to  have  made  a  definable 
approach  to  a  distant  end ;  and  thus  increasingly  long 
series  of  means  that  lie  between  initial  effort  and 
attainment  can  take  on  the  meaning  of  continuous 
successes.  If  our  view  of  the  State  is  right/®  it  is  only 
as  we  become  capable  of  taking  an  interest  in  perma¬ 
nent  and  cumulative  objects  that  the  will  to  power 
can  subordinate  its  competitive  to  a  non-competitive 
character  and  so  become  thoroughly  social.  And  it 
must  be  seasoned  to  delay,  before  the  problems  with 
which  adolescence  confronts  instinct  can  be  even  fairly 
well  met. 

V 

The  strain  upon  instinct  at  adolescence  is  due  largely 
to  the  delay  imposed  on  the  impulses  of  acquisition 
and  sex.  The  vigorous  ways  of  primitive  food-getting 
and  property-getting  have  to  recognize  their  trans¬ 
formed  selves,  if  they  can,  in  the  devious  routine  of 
labor  and  exchange.  The  sex-interest,  under  any  set 
of  customs  so  far  proposed,  must  learn  to  express 
itself  for  a  time  in  partial  and  sublimated  forms.  The 
circumstance  that  children  usually  grow  up  in  fami¬ 
lies  is  nature’s  simple  and  effective  device  for  im¬ 
posing  on  the  powerful  current  of  sex-feeling  ^ts 
presumptive  meaning:  every  child  starts  life  with  a 
prejudice  to  the  effect  that  its  affections  will  lead  it 
sooner  or  later  to  found  a  family  resembling  (with 
improvements)  the  family  from  which  it  came.  But 
when  sex-interest  becomes  a  practical  personal  im- 


10  p.  205,  above. 


246 


SOCIETY 


pulse  it  outruns  the  restricted  possibilities  of  family-' 
founding;  it  meets  on  every  hand  the  unexplained 
check,  the  unexplained  inner  compunction  quite  as 
much  as  the  unexplained  social  ruling.  Inhibition  and 
I  prohibition  alike  mean  delay;  and  the  tendency  of  all 
^  delay  is  to  cast  the  energies  of  impulse  upward  into 
the  region  of  dream,  romance,  speculation,  substitution. 

Here  the  will  to  power  should  provide  the  great 
natural  resource ;  and  will  do  so  if  it  has  been  linked 
with  imagination.  Delay  becomes  supportable  if 
I  imagination  gives  the  ^prolonged  vestibule the  shape 
of  a  conscious  plan,  with  the  many  possible  successes 
of  approach :  and  for  the  acquisitive  impulses  this  may 
at  least  ease  the  situation.  But  delay  becomes  more 
than  tolerable,  it  becomes  significant,  if  it  affords  lee- 
■  way  for  the  creation  of  the  plan  itself^  enlisting  the 
inexhaustible  plan-making  impulses  of  the  youthful 
brain.  Here  the  possibilities  of  the  imaginative  will 
to  power  are  so  great  that  it  may  assume  an  actual 
equivalence  for  the  satisfaction  of  other  instincts ;  and 
in  particular  the  creative  element  in  the  sex-impulse 
may  be  largely  absorbed  or  ^sublimated’  in  the  new 
preoccupation. 

For  at  adolescence  there  is  at  least  one  such  task  of 
creation  which  the  will  cannot  escape,  that  of  construct¬ 
ing  one’s  philosophy.  The  youth  finds  himself,  at  his 
own  estimate,  for  the  first  time  an  equal  among  equals. 
There  is  a  change  in  the  order  of  authority.  Children 
have  an  appetite  for  authority  corresponding  to  their 
mental  unfinishedness  and  rapid  growth;  with  ado- 

11  P.  178,  above. 


EDUCATION 


247 


lescence  comes  a  sense  of  competence  and  a  disposition 
to  be  critical.  The  conceit  of  opinion  in  the  adolescent 
is  not  empty:  it  is  based  on  a  readiness  to  assume^ 
responsibility,  and  on  an  actual  assumption  of  respon¬ 
sibility  in  the  work  of  mental  world-building  if  not  of 
physical  world-building.  He  appreciates  for  the  first 
time  that  he  has  his  own  life  to  lead;  he  finds  himself 
morally  alone;  he  can  no  longer  endure  to  see  things 
through  the  eyes  of  others. 

In  dealing  with  this  readiness  to  assume  respon¬ 
sibility  and  with  its  accompanying  conceit — the  ^in¬ 
stinct  of  self-assertion^  as  it  is  called  by  McDougall 
and  others — ^we  commit  some  of  our  most  serious 
educational  blunders.  We  customarily  put  the  boy 
into  continued  schooling  where  his  powers  of  serious 
action  beat  the  air,  and  we  rebuke  his  conceit  by 
external  pressure:  the  first  wrong  brings  the  second 
after  it.  Continued  schooling  is  inevitable  and  not 
necessarily  unnatural ;  but  the  only  fair  corrective  for 
the  conceit,  or  rather  the  only  right  environment  for 
this  new  development  of  instinct,  is  the  actual  respon¬ 
sibility  it  craves.  Our  school  days  and  years  have 
their  intervals ;  and  those  intervals  should  be,  at  least 
in  part,  intervals  of  earning  a  living.  The  boy  who 
passes  his  adolescence  without  knowing  the  feeling  of 
doing  a  day’s  work  for  a  day’s  Avages  is  risking  not 
only  a  warp  in  his  instinctive  make-up,  but  a  shallow¬ 
ing  of  all  further  work  in  school  and  college,  because 
of  a  loss  of  contact  with  this  angle  of  reality  at  the 
moment  when  his  will  was  ripe  for  it.  The  mental 
helplessness  of  many  students  who  cumber  the  colleges 


248 


SOCIETY 


of  this  and  other  lands,  the  dispositional  snobbery  and 
self-saving  of  many  an  over-confident  and  over-sexed 
yonth  sent  out  as  ‘educated^  to  justify  once  more  the 
spirit  of  rebellion  against  the  mental  and  moral  in¬ 
competence  of  those  who  assume  to  lead  and  govern, 
has  much  of  its  explanation  in  our  failure  at  this 
point.  The  marvel  is  not  that  such  misshapen  births 
occur;  the  marvel  is  that  young  human  nature  shows 
such  magnificent  self-righting  qualities  when  its  will 
to  power  is  once  thoroughly  engaged. 

But  whether  or  not  the  concrete  responsibility  he 
craves  is  permitted  him,  the  responsibility  for  mental 
world-building  cannot  be  refused  the  adolescent,  and 
he  will  take  it.  This  is  the  natural  moment  for  tearing 
down  and  rebuilding  the  beliefs  absorbed  during  the 
era  of  his  subordination  to  authority.  Youth  is  meta¬ 
physical  not  because  metaphysics  is  a  youthful  malady 
but  because  youth  has  metaphysical  work  to  do ;  it  has 
been  attached  to  the  universe  through  the  mental  veins 
of  its  authorities;  now  it  must  win  an  attachment  of 
its  own.  The  old  structure  of  belief  will  not  be  wholly 
abandoned, — it  may  not  be  so  much  as  altered ;  but  it 
must  be  hypothetically  abandoned,  surveyed  from  out¬ 
side  largely  by  the  aid  of  the  materials  furnished  the 
imagination  in  early  years,  the  young  Greek,  the  young 
Utopian  we  have  implanted  in  the  young  modern. 
That  to  which  one  returns  is  then  no  longer  another’s, 
but  one’s  own.  Originality  is  not  measured  by  the 
amount  of  change,  but  by  the  depth  of  this  re-thinking. 

It  is  originality  of  this  sort,  another  name  for 
individuality,’  which  is  chiefly  at  stake  during  ado- 


/ 


EDUCATION 


249 


lescence.  If  the  will  to  power  cannot  take  this  meta¬ 
physical  .direction,  individuality  will  be  curtailed  in  its 
growth.  If  self-assertion  takes  the  form  of  rebellion 
against  restraint  of  sex-impulse,  individuality  will  be 
the  loser  not  the  gainer.  For  sex-expression  is  the 
merging  of  the  individual  in  the  currents  of  the  genus ; 
and  early  sex-expression  signs  away  just  the  last  and 
highest  reaches  of  individual  development.  It  ensures 
mediocrity,  and  by  a  curious  paradox,  conventionality 
of  mind:  nothing  is  so  uninventive  as  ordinary  sex- 
rebellion.  Only  deferment  and  sublimation  can  carry 
individual  self-consciousness  to  its  own.^^ 

VI 

If  the  instinctive  life  of  adolescence  is  to  be  domi¬ 
nated  by  the  will  to  power  in  the  form  of  creative 
thinking,  the  impulse  and  power  to  think  must  be  well 
grown;  whereas  originality  of  this  sort  is  the  rarest 
product  of  our  education.  The  abundant  will  of 
childish  curiosity  which  should  now  be  brimming  into 
the  channel  of  explorative  thought,  we  are  commonly 
compelled  to  see  running  dry.  Is  it  necessary  to  stand 
helpless  before  this  serious  failure  of  the  attempt  to 
educate  ? 

12  There  is  a  similar  loss  through  hasty  self-assertion  in  the  direction 
‘  of  the  acquisitive  instincts.  To  win  the  early  attention  of  the  market 
it  is  necessary  to  offer  something  new.  Novelty  is  a  natural  product  of 
thought;  but  premature  gathering  of  this  crop  has  a  biological  reaction 
on  the  root.  The  normal  source  of  the  new  is  not  direct  attention  to  the 
new,  but  attention  to  the  real;  the  novelty  that  comes  as  a  result  of  the 
painful  quest  for  novelty  will  prove  in  the  end  to  be  a  mere  variation 
of  a  conventional  pattern,  like  the  scenarios  of  our  movies,  and  so  in 
time  to  pall  by  its  tawdry  repetition. 


250 


SOCIETY 


The  difficulty  does  not  lie  primarily  in  the  fact  that 
explorative  thought  is  the  most  arduous  way.  of  meet¬ 
ing  life,  whether  for  educator  or  educated.  It  is 
certainly  much  simpler  for  both  sides  to  accept  classi¬ 
fied  solutions  for  classified  situations,  after  the  fashion 
of  the  manuals  of  casuistry,  than  to  discount  every 
actual  hypothesis  in  favor  of  a  possibly  better  one. 
But  the  difficulty  is  that  with  the  best  of  will,  the  power 
of  explorative  thinking  cannot  be  taught  by  direct 
effort.  In  attempting  to  communicate  it,  what  we  pass, 
on  is  a  solution,  never  the  mental  process  that  reached 
it.  In  our  laboratories  we  undertake  to  teach  scien¬ 
tific  method,  the  method  by  which  Galileo  and  his 
successors  made  their  discoveries;  but  our  typical 
product  still  lacks  something  that  was  in  Galileo. 
Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  has  revealed  to  mankind  the  secret 
of  Eodin^s  art;  yet  no  one  takes  Eodin’s  place.  The 
attempt  to  transmit  originality,  and  the  attempt  to 
transmit  tradition  are  in  the  same  case:  if  with  the 
tradition  could  be  given  the  power  that  created  it, 
tradition  would  have  few  enemies.  Imitation  never 
quite  imitates;  education  never  educes  the  most  vital 
power.  Platonism  produces  no  other  Plato :  Chris¬ 
tianity  yields  no  other  Jesus  nor  Paul.  If  instead  of 
trying  to  conserve  itself,  every  society  and  every 
tradition  put  out  all  its  efforts  to  make  new  prophets, 
new  iconoclasts,  it  would  still  find  itself  conserving  the 
husk,  unless  the  spring  of  that  unteachable  power  can 
be  touched. 

It  is  here  that  we  realize  most  keenly  that  education 
in  the  last  analysis  must  be  on  the  part  of  the  educator 


EDUCATION 


251 


a  study  of  self -elimination.  It  has  throughout  a  para¬ 
doxical  character.  In  those  beginnings  of  independent 
thought  which  we  found  in  the  ‘companionable  interest 
in  nature/  the  art  of  exposure  involved  the  withdrawal 
of  society  by  society,  a  self-effacement  which  must 
gradually  become  complete.  It  is  the  moments  of 
loneliness  that  are  critical  for  the  spontaneity  of  the 
mind ;  and  they  can  be  to  some  extent  procured  for  the 
growing  self  by  increasing  the  opportunities  for  learn¬ 
ing  through  one^s  own  mistakes,  through  experiments 
in  opposition,  and  through  attempts  at  the  solitary 
occupation  of  leadership. 

But  self-eliminating  is  not  a  purely  negative  pro¬ 
cess  ;  for  explorative  thought  has  never  been  a  purely 
disconnected  fact  in  the  universe :  it  has  had  its 
sources,  and  the  last  rite  of  the  self-eliminating  art 
would  be  to  point  out  those  sources  so  far  as  we  know 
them.  We  may  at  least  conduct  our  youth  to  the 
farthest  point  on  our  own  horizon,  to  the  point  from 
which  all  that  is  tentative  is  seen  as  tentative,  all  that 
is  small  as  small,  all  that  is  human  as  merely  human. 
“For  each  man,^’  we  may  say  to  them,  “there  is  a 
region  of  consciousness  more  nearly  just  and  free  than 
others,  looking  out  toward  absolute  truth,  if  not  seeing 
it. '  In  all  ages  men  have  sought  out  this  region,  and 
have  found  there  a  promise  of  freedom  from  all 
residual  tyrannies  of  custom  and  education ;  and  from 
this  source  innovations  without  number  have  made 
their  way  into  social  life.  What  men  have  called  their 
religion  has  been  the  inertia-breaking,  bond-breaking 
power,  the  mother  of  much  explorative  thought.  It 


252 


SOCIETY 


has  at  times  exercised  a  tyranny  of  its  own,  and  this 
is  the  most  hideous  of  tyrannies  because  it  invades  the 
region  of  most  intimate  freedom.  But  from  it  has 
come  the  power  for  breaking  these  same  shackles. 
There  you  may  find  or  recover  the  vision  which  nulli¬ 
fies  all  imposture  of  the  Established,  the  Entrenched, 
of  all  the  self-satisfied  Toryisms,  Capitalisms,  Obscu¬ 
rantisms  of  the  world.  And  there  you  may  find  what 
is  not  less  necessary  for  originality :  unity  in  the  midst 
of  distraction,  composure  in  the  midst  of  necessary  and 
unnecessary  flux,  quiet  confidence  in  your  own  eyesight 
in  presence  of  the  Newest,  the  Noisiest,  the  Scientifi- 
calest,  the  Blatantest,  all  the  brow-beating  expositions 
of  pseudo-Originality,  pseudo-Progress.  Your  need  is 
not  for  novelty  for  its  own  sake,  but  for  truth :  out  of 
your  personal  relation  to  truth  comes  all  the  novelty 
that  can  serve  you,  or  mankind  through  you.  This 
personal  relation  to  truth  you  must  win  for  yourself ; 
but  you  may  be  left  with  good  hope  to  win  it,  for  truth 
is  no  dead  thing,  but  is  itself  a  spirit.^’ 

Society,  I  dare  say,  has  never  been  wholly  false  to 
this  self-displacing  conception  of  education:  even  its 
most  hide-bound  orthodoxies  have  produced  characters 
capable  of  social  and  political  resistance,  revolution 
if  need  be.  And  the  modes  of  conduct  which  it  has 
attempted  to  transmit  have  been  derived  seldom 
from  a  direct  study  of  its  own  welfare,  chiefly  from 
its  own  view  of  the  dictates  of  this  more  absolute 
consciousness. 

For  this  reason,  in  our  own  study  of  society  we  have 
given  little  attention  to  specific  transformations  of 


EDUCATION 


253 


instinct.  If  anything  is  discoverable  more  adequate ) 
and  final  than  a  given  stage  of  social  transformation, 
it  is  that  which  social  education  reaches  toward,  and 
which  alone  can  concern  us,  even  as  social  beings. 
But  our  view  of  society  as  an  instrument  of  remaking 
would  be  incomplete  without  some  account  of  its  nega¬ 
tive  hction,  its  dealing  with  the  rebel  and  the  criminal. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 


THE  RIGHT  OF  REBELLION 

SOCIAL  pressures  are  not  unlike  physical  pres¬ 
sures.  They  consist  usually  of  a  push  and  a  pull 
acting  in  concert — a  vision  of  good  and  a  fear  of  evil. 
In  a  given  society  every  member  is  subject  to  the  same 
general  pressure, — and  though  some  will  be  nearer  the 
fear  of  pain  than  others,  all  will  he  cognizant  of,  and 
governed  by,  the  prevalent  social  punishments.  For 
punishment  is  but  the  realization  of  the  threat  implied 
in  all  pressure ;  discipline  and  punishment  are  insepa¬ 
rable  and  co-extensive  in  their  domain.  Whatever 
justifies  the  one,  justifies  the  other  also. 

Our  position  has  been  that  social  pressure,  and 
therefore  punishment,  is  justified  by  the  fact  that  it 
tends  to  realize  the  individuaPs  will  as  it  could  not 
otherwise  be  realized, — ^i.e.,  in  so  far  as  our  four 
postulates  are  complied  with.  And  if  there  were  any 
part  of  institutional  life  of  whose  value  to  individuals 
society  could  be  absolutely  certain,  it  would  be  justi¬ 
fied  (by  our  last  postulate)  in  conserving  that  part 
with  all  possible  force,  i.e.,  in  resisting  with  its  whole 
force  any  rebellion  against  it. 

But  taking  our  human  ignorance  and  need  of  per¬ 
petual  experiment  well  into  account,  is  there  any  part 
of  our  institutional  life  which  can  claim  such  wholly 


THE  EIGHT  OF  EEBELEIOH 


255 


certain  and  irreplaceable  value?  Nothing,  unless  wbat 
is  necessary  to  meet  a  necessary  interest.  Such  a 
necessity  we  have  recognized  in  the  simple  existence 
of  a  social  order,  and  of  a  political  form  thereof. 
But  we  cannot  argue  from  this  necessity^  that  any  given 
society  or  state  is  necessary;  it  is  only  that  some 
particular  state  is  necessary.  Nevertheless,  existence 
in  such  matters  is  a  great  merit ;  and  under  the  condi¬ 
tions  we  have  named  the  existing  society  and  state  are 
always  the  best, — the  conditions,  namely,  that  it  is 
willing  to  become  the  best  and  is  offering  itself  in  good 
faith  as  agent  for  this  becoming. 

The  good  faith  of  the  critic  of  society  is  tested,  then, 
by  his  willingness  to  use  society  as  agent  for  its  own 
improvement;  he  is  willing  to  criticise  from  within, 
not  from  without.  The  individual  bearer  of  progress 
has  always  this  in  common  with  the  enemy  of  man¬ 
kind,  that  he  attacks  existing  custom.  But  the  vital 
difference  is  that  the  former  works  through  such 
political  good  will  as  is  extant,  accepting  in  full  the 
obligation  to  replace  what  he  rejects, — the  latter 
rejects  the  obligation  with  the  custom.  The  former 
knows  that  there  may  be  one  point  of  absolute  worth 
in  a  mass  of  evil,  namely,  good  faith  in  abetting  reform. 
If  this  good  faith  does  not  exist,  he  might  seem 
justified  in  rebellion. 

But  the  good  faith  assumed  in  this  theory  is  not 
found  either  in  the  social  order  or  in  its  critics.  On 
both  sides  the  interest  in  justice  is  mixed  with  what¬ 
ever  malice,  greed,  lust,  and  callousness  still  lurks  in 

1  The  logical  error  of  Hobbes  ’  theory  of  sovereignty  lies  here. 


256 


SOCIETY 


human  character.  The  art  of  social  life,  and  of 
politics  in  particular,  is  to  deal  not  with  perfect  beings, 
but  with  fallible  and  defective  wills.  The  question  is 
never  simply.  What  exists?  but  rather.  What  can  be 
made  to  exist?  And  the  issue  of  rebellion,  and  of  its 
treatment,  is  not  simply.  Does  good  faith  exist?  on 
one  side,  or  on  the  other.  It  is  the  presence  or  absence 
of  faith  in  a  possible  good  faith  that  decides  the  issue. 

This  issue,  by  its  very  statement,  lies  in  regions 
inaccessible  to  observation.  The  last  relations  of 
individuals  and  societies  are  found  in  the  darkness  of 
solitary  judgment.  Here  lies  the  perpetual  and  un¬ 
avoidable  opening  for  tragedy  in  history,  the  mutual 
condemnation  of  wills  who  with  like  rectitude  are 
unable  to  reach  either  understanding  or  trust.  It  is 
idle  to  suppose  that  any  legal  formula  can  be  laid  down 
to  determine  when  a  rebellion  is  justified;  it  is  equal 
folly  to  infer  from  the  absence  of  such  a  principle  that 
rebellion  is  always  unjustifiable.  The  issue  does  not 
lie  within  the  legal  order,  but  it  is  a  definite  issue. 
Within  myself  I  know  whether  I  must  condemn  and 
attack  the  order  in  which  I  live  as  an  order  so  far 
corrupt  that  no  good  will  of  mine  can  hope  to  mend  it. 
And  my  society,  and  my  state,  know  likewise  whether 
they  can  still  have  hope  of  me,  and  whether,  therefore, 
they  shall  take  my  outbreak  as  a  rebellion,  or  as  a 


common  crime. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 


PUNISHMENT 

IT  is  important  to  make  this  distinction  between  the 
rebel  and  the  criminal.  The  rebel  is  he  who  is 
consciously  and  hopelessly  hostile  to  the  social  order. 
The  criminal  is  he  whose  deed  implies  a  rebellion ;  but 
this  implication  is  not  the  conscious  and  avowed 
intention  of  the  deed — the  man  has  simply  taken  what 
he  wanted  in  disregard  of  socially  declared  rights.’ 
The  act  of  the  State,  in  each  case,  is  to  make  the 
external  status  correspond  with  the  internal  status. 
The  rebel  by  his  overt  deed  has  shown  himself  inwardly 
condemning  his  society,  and  so  external  to  it  in  will: 
society  makes  the  exclusion  visible,  and  as  final  and 
irrevocable  as  it  conceives  his  will  to  be.  It  has  not 
first  to  enquire  what  the  rebel’s  rights  may  be;  for 
he  has  rejected  his  rights  under  that  order:  the  rebel 
is  the  lost  soul,  and  in  excluding  him  society  is  but 
dealing  with  facts,  and  pursuing  its  own  duty  of 
conservation.  As  for  the  criminal,  the  act  of  society 
is  first  to  compel  him  to  face  the  ignored  element  of 
rebellion  implied  in  his  behavior:  he  is  ‘^arrested,” — 
i.e.,  at  once  checked  in  his  policy  and  compelled  to 

1  To  this  extent  all  crimes  come  within  the  legal  category  of  ‘  negli¬ 
gence.  ’  They  have,  of  course,  the  psychological  character  of  “  sin  ’  ’ — 
the  rejection  of  meaning — ^but  here  the  meaning  in  question  is  limited  to 
the  idea  involved  in  the  defined  ‘‘rights’’  of  the  social  or  legal  person. 


258 


SOCIETY 


reflect  and  decide  in  full  consciousness  of  the  meaning 
of  his  act.  The  social  exhibition  to  the  criminal  of 
the  meaning  of  his  act  is  ^punishment.’  Punishment 
is  thus  a  hopeful  policy;  it  argues  ‘faith  in  a  possible 
good  faith.’  It  exceeds  the  criminal’s  right,  in  so  far 
as  society  might  have  insisted  upon  the  implied 
rebellion ;  but  it  does  not  exceed  the  right  of  the  human 
being  regarded  as  changeable. 

The  converse  of  this  proposition  is  also  true :  the 
only  hopeful  policy  is  a  policy  of  punishment.  It  is  a 
prevalent  sentiment  that  the  treatment  of  crime  should 
aim  only  at  the  future,  heal  the  disturbed  mind,  and 
drop  all  thought  of  retribution,  which  looks  vengefully 
to  the  past.  As  if  we  could  deal  with  the  future  of  a 
human  mind  except  by  dealing  with  its  maxims;  and 
could  deal  with  its  maxims  except  by  dealing  with  the 
deeds  which  those  maxims  have  produced!  It  is  only 
when  we  give  up  a  person  as  hopeless  that  we  cease 
to  take  issue  with  the  decisions  that  reveal  him ;  he  then 
becomes  to  us,  in  fact,  a  determined  Thing,  and  is 
excluded  from  our  society  as  etfectually  as  if  by  some 
magic  curse  we  had  transformed  him  into  an  autom¬ 
aton.  By  such  self-contradictions  false  sentiment 
never  fails  to  reveal  its  own  unreality.  Punishment, 
I  repeat,  is  an  expression  of  social  hope — the  hope  of 
remaking  or  saving  the  man,  by  revealing  to  him  in 
the  language  of  deeds  the  meaning  of  his  own  deed. 
Thus  the  typical  punishment  of  crime  takes  the  form 
of  simulating  the  treatment  of  the  rebel,  the  rightless 
man :  it  is  an  exclusion  from  society,  within  society, — 
an  incarceration, — an  exclusion  that  may  be  revoked 


PUNISHMENT 


259 


when  the  argument  has  its  effect.  The  argument  is 
clearer  in  proportion  as  the  element  of  physical 
suffering  is  minimized.  The  suffering  of  punishment 
should  reveal  the  worth  of  what  the  criminal  has 
ignored :  his  liberty,  his  free  companionship  and 
friendship,  his  political  powers,  his  ability  to  make 
and  execute  plans  in  the  community  at  large,  his  right 
to  build  continuously  on  an  achieved  degree  of  power 
and  station,  however  modest.  Discontinuity  is  a 
sufficient  argument, — if  any  argument  is  sufficient. 
And  if  none  is  sufficient,  the  criminal  is  indeed  the 
rebel ;  and  must  be  so  treated.  The  exclusion  must  be 
as  permanent  as  the  unconvinced  will. 

The  truth  is  that  society  cannot  punish  unless  it  can 
create  a  ‘  ^  conviction.  ’  ’  For  as  long  as  the  criminal 
retains  the  maxim  of  his  deed,  his  suffering  is  a  mere 
hardship, — not  an  argument.  The  hardship  becomes 
punishment  only  in  so  far  as  he  perceives  and  accepts 
its  meaning.  There  can  he  no  retribution  without 
reformation;  this  is  the  true  principle  underlying 
modern  changes  in  the  treatment  of  delinquency  and 
crime.  And  the  same  principle  reveals  the  inherent 
difficulty  in  the  whole  theory  of  punishment,  as  an 
incompletely  transformed  exhibition  of  social  resent¬ 
ment,  or  pugnacity.  For  society  fails  to  convince,  and 
must  always  fail  to  convince,  unless  it  actually  has  in 
itself  the  good  faith  and  good  will  of  which  it  would 
persuade  him.  It  must  be  able  to  point  beyond  those 
maladjustments  which  have  borne  hard  on  the  indi¬ 
vidual,  and  have  made  society  itself  a  partner  in  his 
crime,  to  the  only  pure  and  eternal  element  possible 


260 


SOCIETY 


in  a  human  society,  the  will  to  correct  with  his  help 
its  own  errors.  But  punishment,  having  the  external 
shape  of  revenge,  and  administered  by  something  less 
than  holy  wills,  runs  counter  to  this  revelation  and 
obscures  it.  The  punishment  of  crime  is,  in  form, 
another  crime.  The  act  of  punishing  always  contains 
elements  which  tend  to  defeat  its  own  intention.  As 
the  executioner  and  the  warrior,  though  their  offices 
were  sanctified,  have  been  counted  unclean,  and  the 
hands  of  those  that  have  carried  out  the  dead :  so  the 
necessary  meeting  of  evil  seems  attended  with  the 
fatality  of  participating  in  the  evil. 

The  same  motives  which  in  the  dialectic  of  expe¬ 
rience  drove  individual  expression  of  pugnacity  from 
punishment  to  forgiveness  thus  have  their  force  in 
public  action  also;  but  the  State  cannot  follow  the 
dialectic  to  this  point.  The  State  must  punish.  It 
may  and  does  exercise  clemency;  but  clemency  can  be 
effective  only  as  following  upon  that  conviction  which 
is  the  essence  of  punishment,  and  which  involves 
arrest  and  trial — or  forced  discontinuity  of  action, 
however  brief.  The  State,  speaking  as  it  must  to  the 
inner  intention  through  the  medium  of  deeds,  has  no 
way  of  distinguishing  a  clemency  prior  to  all  punish¬ 
ment  from  a  meaningless  passivity.  Further,  since  the 
criminal  while  possibly  citizen,  is  also  possibly  rebel, 
the  State  must  recognize  both  possibilities.  The  State 
must  punish. 

Further — and  this  aspect  of  the  matter  has  not  been 
forgotten  in  theories  of  penology,  but  has  seldom  been 
rightly  placed — the  criminal  is  not  the  only  one  who 


PUNISHMENT 


261 


is  to  be  punished  for  his  crime.  We  have  said  that 
every  member  of  a  society  is  under  the  same  pressure ; 
we  may  now  say  that  every  member  is  under  the  same 
punishment.  The  only  justification  for  treating  the 
criminal  by  the  educative  method  of  punishment  is 
that  he  is,  after  all,  of  like  mind  with  the  rest  of  his 
group;  and  they,  in  turn,  are  of  like  passions  with 
himself.  It  was  this  which,  in  primitive  society,  made 
crime  a  common  menace,  calling  for  public,  and  not 
merely  for  individual  purification.  The  theory  that 
the  gods  must  be  propitiated  was  a  mode  of  expressing 
an  actual  condition.  For  in  all  minds,  and  not  in  a 
few  only,  the  goods  which  constitute  a  common  culture 
retain  their  persuasiveness  only  by  perpetual  contest 
with  the  superior  obviousness  of  the  material  goods 
and  the  direct  ways  thereto.  The  deed  of  the  unper¬ 
suaded  man,  painted  on  the  imagination  of  all  who 
know  of  it,  conspires  with  the  natural  gravitation  of  the 
human  will.  The  relatively  defenceless  and  vulnerable 
fabric  of  the  necessary  good  has  been  attacked  in  all 
minds;  the  plague  spot  which  appears  must  be  taken 
as  symptomatic.  A  white  slaver  appears  in  a  public 
tribunal,  and  unblushingly  expounds  his  occupation  as 
a  form  of  business;  and  as  I  read  his  testimony  his 
‘point  of  view^  penetrates  farther  than  my  ears,  and 
I  must  take  thought  to  revive  the  sources  of  my  indig¬ 
nation.  “When  thou  sawest  a  thief,  thou  consentedst 
with  him  and  hast  been  a  partaker  with  adulterers.” 
The  community  has  thus  a  work  to  do  which  is  not 
limited  to  the  person  of  the  criminal.  This  work  is 
sometimes  spoken  of  as  “deterrent,”— and  so  it  is. 


262 


SOCIETY 


but  this  is  a  partial  and  an  after-effect;  in  its  imme¬ 
diate  force  it  is  punitive, — it  is  the  share  of  the  entire 
community  in  the  suffering  and  purging  which  belong 
to  the  thoughts  of  crime.  It  is  not  that  the  criminal 
is  suffering  for  the  community;  it  is  the  community 
which  must  suffer  for  and  with  him,  must  have  its 
sympathetic  share  in  the  argument  of  his  punishment 
because  of  its  equally  sympathetic  share  in  his  crime. 
Hence  the  language  of  the  State  must  be  stern,  unmis¬ 
takable,  public,  and  awakening ;  the  State  must  punish, 
to  remake  the  souls  of  all. 


II 

The  Dialectic  of  Punishment 

Dealing  with  crime  thus  involves  a  dilemma:  it  is 
necessary  to  provide  crime  with  its  argument;  yet  in 
doing  so,  society  provides  it  with  an  unintended  argu¬ 
ment  against  itself.  Whatever  is  defective  in  the 
spirit  of  a  community  will  show  most  clear  in  its 
treatment  of  crime  whether  harsh,  malicious,  brutal, 
sentimental,  or  simply  callous.  Public  resentment 
is  never  a  holy  reaction,  unmixed  with  impatience, 
contempt,  and  a  desire  to  be  undisturbed  in  its 
own  more  decorous  selfishness.  The  man  who  is 
caught  feels  through  the  net  the  cunning  eyes  of 
the  uncaught.  By  a  deep-wrought  law  of  nature  he 
attracts  the  worst  side  of  the  social  temper  to  himself : 
the  pursuer  of  crime  adopts  the  arts  of  the  pursued, 
and  becomes  like  him  in  quality  and  habit.  It  is  hard 


THE  DIALECTIC  OF  PUNISHMENT  263 

to  deal  with  evil  except  evilly.  Even  expletives  of 
condemnation  vulgarize  their  users :  one  who  employs 
much  vituperative  language  becomes  assimilated  to 
the  images  he  habitually  invokes.  In  condemning  the 
vice  that  most  tempts  him,  the  hypocrite  has  commonly 
found  a  subtle  way  of  self-indulgence.  The  extreme 
hostility  provoked  by  crimes  of  sex  is  due  in  part  to 
the  participation  which  their  cognizance  imposes,  and 
to  the  sense  that  resistance  itself  has  forced  an 
unwilling  consciousness  upon  their  victims.  As 
administered  by  human  beings,  punishment  contains 
a  self-defeating  element. 

The  history  of  criminal  law  shows  mankind  early 
aware  of  this  difficulty,  and  devising  various  ways  to 
meet  it.  Blood  vengeance,  which  speaks  in  the  name 
of  the  sacred  spirit  of  the  family,  is  an  advance  upon 
individual  vengeance.  Something  exalted  and  heroic 
may  enter  into  it;  adversaries  in  feud  may  recognize 
in  each  other  the  requirements  of  spirit  and  honor. 
Yet  the  deed  of  honor  fails  to  convince  the  family 
spirit  which  is  its  victim;  it  simply  transfers  the 
necessity  of  honor  to  the  alternate  member  of  the  feud, 
whom  it  has  treated  as  an  equal.  Hence  it  fails  to 
punish.  And  it  cannot  punish,  unless  it  can  escape 
from  its  simple  opposition  and  equality  into  a  region 
inclusive  of  both  members  and  their  passions,  a  region 
in  which  it  can  appeal  to  the  criminal  as  endowed  with 
a  right  not  alone  to  judge  and  punish,  but  to  close  the 
argument  by  restoring  the  disturbed  status. 

Such  a  region  was  provided,  by  a  true  social  instinct, 
in  the  ancient  places  of  asylum,  which  were  not  merely 


264 


SOCIETY 


places  secured  from  violence,  but  also  places  whose 
sanctity  could  overawe  the  minds  and  passions  of  both 
accuser  and  accused.  And  that  sanctity  to  which  the 
culprit  might  run  for  protection,  having  shown  itself 
so  far  beneficent  to  him,  would  be  more  nearly 
convincing  in  its  condemnation.  The  issue  of  such 
an  interval  of  security,  with  the  advantage  perhaps 
of  the  passionless  judgment  of  the  guardians  of 
the  place,  would  partake  of  the  nature  of  a  true 
punishment. 

But  neither  the  interposition  of  asylum,  nor  of 
judgment,  nor  of  ordeal,  nor  of  more  rational  trial 
procedure,^  could  offer  the  convicted  person  much  hope 
of  restoration,  at  least  as  an  intact  individual,  if  given 
over  at  last  to  the  mercies  of  his  accuser.  To  this 
extent,  another  device,  that  of  payment  or  compensa¬ 
tion,  to  be  accepted  in  lieu  of  death  or  mutilation,  more 
nearly  conveyed  the  meaning  of  punishment.  It  also 
tended  to  temper  by  reflection  the  passion  of  revenge ; 
but  this  time  by  a  calculating  reflection  instead  of  a 
dominating  religious  dread.  The  spark  of  valid 
resentment  was  certain  to  be  somewhat  diluted  in  the 
desire  of  gain,  and  most  patently  to  the  accused, 
whether  the  payment  was  taken  over  by  the  accuser, 
or  appropriated  by  the  common  or  lordly  purse.  The 
demand  for  a  preliminary  confession  and  apology, 
while  it  mitigated  the  venality  of  the  transaction  and 

2  It  must  be  remembered  that  criminal  procedure  becomes  a  part  of 
punishment  inasmuch  as  it  determines  the  meaning  and  temper  of  the 
punishment.  It  is  the  subject  and  verb  of  the  ‘sentence.’ 


THE  DIALECTIC  OF  PUNISHMENT  265 

made  the  criminal  a  party  to  his  own  condemnation, 
hardly  secured  the  sincerity  of  the  conviction. 

The  experience  of  the  Greeks,  embodied  in  their 
legends,  well  shows  the  logic  of  the  situation  and 
carries  the  problem  a  step  farther  toward  solution. 
The  iniquity  of  vengeance  would  appear  at  its  height 
when  crime  broke  out  within  the  family,  and  so 
involved  the  curse  of  repeated  family  crime,  such  a 
curse  as  befell  the  ill-fated  house  of  Atreus  of  Argos. 
Atreus,  the  wronged  husband  (according  to  the  version 
of  ^schylus),  had  no  choice  but  to  impose  banishment 
upon  his  brother  Thyestes.  But  Thyestes  taking 
refuge  in  the  city  sanctuary  keeps  alive  by  his 
presence  the  element  of  rancor  in  Atreus;  so  that  at 
last  the  outraged  spirit  of  family  honor  vents  itself 
in  a  counter-outrage  upon  the  remaining  spark  of 
sacred  feeling  in  the  outcast  himself,  his  affection  as 
a  father  betrayed  into  eating  the  flesh  of  his  slain 
children.  Thus  Atreus,  in  punishing,  injures  that 
which  in  punishing  he  seeks  to  preserve;  and  so  with 
each  new  step  in  the  tragic  history.  Orestes  alone, 
driven  rather  by  the  command  of  Apollo  than  by 
personal  bitterness  to  the  matricide  which  avenges  his 
father,  seems  to  have  acquired  an  honesty  of  spirit 
that  might  reconcile  Clytemnestra  to  her  death.  But 
the  deed  of  vengeance  is  greater  than  his  consciousness 
of  it;  its  objective  impiety  he  cannot  overcome  in  an 
adequate  sense  of  its  divine  necessity;  he,  too,  must 
be  tormented  by  the  Furies.  He  has  not  been  suffi¬ 
ciently  inspired  to  convince  the  guilty  woman,  hence 


266 


SOCIETY 


his  attempt  at  punishment  is  not  free  from  gnilt. 
Apollo,  apparently  helpless,  discharges  his  share  of 
responsibility  by  appeal  to  the  guardian  goddess  of  a 
very  human  civilization,  Pallas  Athene.  And  she  in 
turn,  finding  the  case  ‘‘too  passionate  for  a  goddess,’’ 
still  further  humanizes  the  solution  by  instituting  the 
court  of  citizens,  the  court  of  the  Areopagus,  whose 
first  work  will  be  the  judgment  of  Orestes.  Judging 
as  men,  however,  they  can  but  find  both  for  him  and 
against  him:  no  act  of  human  justice  can  solve  the 
riddle  and  discharge  the  Furies  from  their  work.  It 
is  Athene  who  must  turn  the  scale, — and  apparently 
by  an  arbitrary  touch,  whose  meaning  remains  a 
mystery  even  in  the  work  of  ^schylus.  She  neither 
sanctions  the  act  of  Orestes  nor  condemns  it;  she 
regards  it — so  I  interpret  the  legend — as  an  incident 
of  a  faulty  social  structure  from  which  no  perfect 
solutions  can  come.  Orestes  has  the  benefit  of  the 
historic  chance  that  he  stands  on  the  threshold  of  a 
new  order,  which  no  merit  of  his  could  have  created. 
And  what  is  the  principle  of  this  new  order  I  It  is  the 
dissolving  of  the  family  group,  within  which  all  pas¬ 
sions  are  so  strained  that  no  guiltless  punishment  is 
possible,  in  the  political  community.  Under  the 
auspices  of  its  divine  protector,  this  community  can 
bring  a  perfect  passionlessness  into  the  judgment  and 
punishment  of  crime,  and  purge  the  process  of  the 
barbarism  of  personal  impulse.  The  wrong  done  to 
the  individual,  and  to  the  family,  is  sunk  in  the  wrong 
done  to  the  city-state;  and  the  city  acts  by  reason 
without  wrath.  The  Furies  are  therefore  freed  from 


THE  DIALECTIC  OF  PUNISHMENT  267 

their  mission  and  from  their  character;  they  become 
henceforth  the  gracious  goddesses,’^  enshrined 
within  the  precincts  of  Athene  ^s  sacred  hill.  Punish¬ 
ment  at  the  hands  of  the  State  unites  the  solemnity 
and  refuge  of  the  sanctuary  with  the  rationality  of 
measure.  Ought  it  not  to  convince  the  criminal,  and 
so  solve  the  problem? 

Our  solutions  are  not  fundamentally  ditferent  from 
those  of  the  Greeks;  and  our  experience  in  view  of 
these  historic  experiments  may  reveal  the  defect  of 
its  principle.  The  great  success  of  this  political 
process  is  that  it  localizes  the  hurt,  saving  the  accuser 
from  a  further  crime;  it  has  shown  no  great  power 
to  persuade  the  criminal.  Indeed,  the  impetus  of  the 
accuser's  resentment  is  so  far  checked  that  the  accused 
seldom  feels  in  public  custody  the  element  of  asylum 
which  might  provoke  in  him  some  sense  of  approval 
toward  the  auspices  which  judge  him.  Perhaps  this 
resentment  is  too  far  impersonalized.  Wherever 
feeling  runs  high,  there  is  still  a  tendency  to  evade  the 
circuit  through  the  public  court,  and  to  appeal  to  the 
‘^unwritten  law^^ — which  means  the  primitive  pro¬ 
cedure — or  to  the  duel,  or  to  the  summary  process  of 
Judge  Lynch.  The  theory  seems  to  he  that  the  culprit 
should  not  be  spared  the  sting  of  feeling.  The  practice 
is  at  odds  with  the  theory,  because  conviction  cannot 
be  produced  in  a  medium  of  either  fear  or  pride.  But 
the  criticism  points  in  the  right  direction:  the  State 
has  cut  away  too  much  of  the  meaning  of  ancient  law : 
it  is  passionless  without  spirit;  in  becoming  official  it 


268 


SOCIETY 


has  lost  the  co-operation  of  the  presiding  goddess. 
The  family  could  not  be  official :  hence  it  must  give  way 
to  the  State.  But  in  losing  the  solemn  concern  of  the 
spirit  of  the  family  in  the  apathetic  equanimity  of 
Pallas,  that  spark  of  feeling  has  been  eliminated  which 
alone  can  positively  persuade. 

The  State  cannot  import  feeling  into  its  procedure ; 
though  in  its  own  dignity,  if  it  has  any,  it  may  make 
contact  with  the  sources  of  feeling.  The  State  must 
use  the  language  of  the  external  deed.  If  this  deed 
is  to  become  an  argument,  it  must  be  interpreted  by 
the  criminal  himself;  and  he  will  so  interpret  it  only 
if  he  sees  in  it  the  deed  of  an  august  beneficence  such 
as  commands  his  reverence  as  well  as  his  fear.  He 
must  see  it  as  the  deed  of  an  ideal  social  order  not 
wholly  identical  with  the  order  in  which  he  finds 
himself  entangled.  What  the  State  alone  cannot 
command  must  be  supplied  by  those  free  elements  of 
society  which  continue  the  motives  of  the  ancient 
family  bond  and  the  place  of  refuge.^  It  is  only 
through  a  pervading  activity  of  a  consciousness 
such  as  religion  in  times  past  has  called  out  in 
men,  both  accuser  and  accused,  and  working  in  con¬ 
junction  with  the  official  procedure  of  the  State,  that 
a  genuine  punishment,  and  hence  a  genuine  restoration, 
can  be  accomplished. 

3  Attempts  are  made  to  provide  this  missing  element  by  personal 
indulgence  as  a  mitigation  of  punishment,  in  the  hope  of  humoring 
men  back  into  good  nature.  This  is  a  false  hope,  not  in  what  it  adds, 
but  in  what  it  lets  go.  The  test  of  success  is  that  in  the  midst  of  punish¬ 
ment,  the  State  itself  (and  not  an  individual  warden)  commands  respect 
and  good-will. 


THE  DIALECTIC  OF  PUNISHMENT  269 

Thus  in  the  negative  work  of  punishment  as  in  the 
positive  work  of  education  society  in  remaking  human 
nature  seems  to  depend,  for  the  last  quasi-miraculous 
touch  of  efficiency  without  which  the  rest  of  its  work 
has  the  ring  of  hollowness  and  sham,  upon  an  agency  or 
agencies  beyond  its  own  borders.  To  the -quest  of  these 
ulterior  agencies  of  remaking  we  must  now  turn. 


PAET  VI 


AET  AND  EELIGION 


CHAPTEE  XXXIII 


VOX  DEI 

IN  the  transforming  of  man,  society  intends  to 
civilize  him,  religion  to  save  him.  In  these  terms 
there  is  a  suggestion  that  the  work  of  society  is  more 
or  less  superficial,  that  of  religion  more  radical  and 
thorough.  Man  conforms  his  mind  and  habits  to  social 
requirements  and  becomes  ‘polite’:  he  submits  his 
soul  to  religion  and  becomes  ‘holy.’ 

But  there  is  reason  to  question  whether  this  tradi¬ 
tional  distinction  can  be  maintained ;  or  whether  there 
is  any  legitimate  distinction  at  all  between  the  work 
of  society  and  the  work  of  religion  on  human  nature. 
To  make  man  a  social  being,  to  lead  him  out  of  his 
egoism  and  barbarity  into  the  liberal  interpretation 
of  his  interests  afforded  by  civic  life  and  its  destinies, 
is  not  this  to  make  him  a  religious  being  in  the  only 
sense  of  religion  that  has  valid  meaning? 

In  the  early  days  of  human  organization,  the  dis¬ 
tinction  between  the  social  and  the  religious  could  not 
have  been  drawn,  not  because  all  religion  was  social, 
but  because  all  social  requirement  was  religious.  The 
setting-up  of  ideals,  the  defining  of  customs,  the  giving 
of  laws  were  understood  as  the  voice  of  God  to  the 
people.  Vox  populi  had  no  other  existence  than  in 
vox  Dei.  If  the  interests  of  society  were  at  all  diver¬ 
gent  from  those  of  religion,  there  was  little  oppor- 


274 


AKT  AND  KELIGION 


tunity  to  discover  the  fact:  for  when  the  ordering  of 
life  is  singly  and  simply  from  above,  there  is  no 
comparison  of  standards,  and  hence  no  rebellion  in 
the  name  of  a  social  valne. 

But  the  time  was  bound  to  come  when  the  two  rules, 
the  sacred  and  the  secular,  should  fall  into  contrast, 
if  only  because  of  their  diverse  methods  of  origin,  the 
sacred  relatively  a  priori,  the  secular  relatively  em¬ 
pirical  and  pragmatic.  And  when  this  opposition  has 
occurred,  history  seems  to  show  that  the  destiny  of  the 
sacred  is  to  yield  to  the  secular.  Tabus  accumulated 
beyond  endurance;  were  long  protected  by  faith  and 
fear;  but  they  have  been  swept  away.  Holy  men  fell 
into  the  way  of  announcing  counsels  of  perfection  such 
as  would  mutilate  or  destroy  human  nature, — the 
sacred  books  are  full  of  such  counsels :  for  these, 
practice  provided  an  interpretation,  such  as  all  laws 
need ;  and  the  interpretation  quietly  superseded  the 
announced  ideal.  The  establishments  and  ordinances 
of  religion  became  extremely  costly  to  society,  in  men 
and  time  and  treasure  abstracted  from  social  use,  and 
not  infrequently  too,  in  moral  integrity :  neither  social 
utility  nor  social  ethics  would  sanction  many  ancient 
forms  of  sacrifice.  But  the  race  has  believed  in  its 
social  standards  as  against  the  oracles,  and  these 
extravagances  of  religious  requirement  have  dwindled 
or  disappeared.  Today  it  is  frequently  asserted  by 
the  exponents  of  religion  themselves  that  our  best 
insight  into  the  will  of  God  is  the  verifiable  welfare  of 
society.  Our  religion  seems  to  become,  in  effect  if  not 
in  name,  the  religion  of  humanity. 


vox  DEI 


275 


Thus  the  question  has  become  acute  whether  the 
reference  to  God  is  any  longer  significant.  Is  it  more 
than  an  imaginative  widening  of  the  horizon  under 
which  the  same  acts  and  qualities  are  required,  a 
changing  of  names,  as  from  ^goodness’  to  ‘holiness,’ 
or  from  ‘crime’  to  ‘sin’?  The  tendency  of  history  is 
unmistakable.  From  “The  voice  of  God  is  the  voice 
of  the  people”  we  have  come  to  “The  voice  of  the 
people  is  the  voice  of  God”;  and  it  may  well  be  that 
the  time  has  come  to  drop  the  “voice  of  God”  as 
otiose,  frankly  acknowledging  our  final  insight  into 
human  standards  as  “from  below,”  i.e.,  from  expe¬ 
rience,  socially  transmitted.  If  we  any  longer  main¬ 
tain  a  separate  place  for  religion  in  the  work  of  trans¬ 
forming  human  instinct,  the  burden  of  proof  is  upon  us. 

I  accept  the  burden.  And  I  begin  by  pointing  out 
an  error  in  the  logic  of  the  argument  we  have  just 
reviewed. 

The  course  of  history  seemed  to  show  that  the  will 
of  God  has  tended  to  coincide  with  the  weal  of  society ; 
the  inference  was  that  the  weal  of  society  is  the  inde¬ 
pendent  fact,  and  hence  the  only  fact  that  need  be 
considered.  The  inference  is  hasty.  We  may  accept 
the  proposition.  Nothing  contrary  to  the  welfare  of 
society  can  be  accepted  as  the  will  of  God.  But  the 
postulate  that  A  must  not  clash  with  B  does  not  in  the 
least  inform  me  what  A  is.  I  must  plan  my  house  so 
as  not  to  destroy  the  trees  on  my  lot:  this  condition 
does  not  supply  me  the  plan  of  my  house — would  it 
did!  Keligion  must  not  tear  down  social  values: — 


276 


ART  AND  RELIGION 


this  condition  does  not  supply  me  with  a  religion. 
What  history  suggests,  at  most,  is  that  the  welfare  of 
society  has  a  negative  or  critical  hearing  on  the  inter¬ 
pretation  of  the  religions  standard.  We  may  be 
negative  pragmatists  in  the  matter.^  But  there  is  not 
the  slightest  evidence,  so  far,  that  the  will  of  God  is 
dedncible  from  the  good  of  society  as  an  independent 
fact. 

And  there  is  a  large  volume  of  evidence  to  the 
contrary.  Let  ns  make  the  questionable  admission  that 
we  know  and  can  define  what  social  utility  is ;  it  is  still 
true  that  the  socially  useful  has  never  been  reached 
by  directly  aiming  at  it,  but  has  always  come  as  a 
result  of  aiming  at  something  else,  as  an  independent 
object.  Social  cohesion,  loyalty,  lawfulness  are 
dispositions  upon  which  every  social  structure 
depends,  but  which  society  cannot  directly  produce. 
Already  in  the  speculations  of  Plato  and  Aristotle  we 
find  a  deep  anxiety  as  to  what  education,  what  myth, 
what  music,  what  lie  if  need  be,  will  be  likely  to 
generate  the  spirit  from  which  socially  useful  be¬ 
havior  would  naturally  follow.  Arguing  from  history, 
it  looks  rather  as  if  there  could  be  no  social  good, 
unless  there  is  something  more  than  social  good  as  a 
primary  object  of  pursuit. 

In  point  of  fact,  society  has  always  had  its  religion 
in  some  form, — a  principle  of  devotion  which  has 
pervaded  the  social  tissue,  acting  more  or  less  like 
an  enzjnne  in  furnishing  energy  and  loyalty  at  points 

1  For  the  meaning  of  the  phrase  ‘negative  pragmatism’  see  my  book, 
The  Meaning  of  God,  preface,  pp.  xiii  f . 


vox  DEI 


277 


needing  support.  Law-abiding  behavior  could  not  be 
reached  by  the  separate  attention  of  each  citizen  to 
each  law:  it  has  to  be  reached  for  the  most  part 
through  a  disposition  which  of  its  own  motion  is  ^^the 
fulfilling  of  the  law/’  or  the  major  part  of  the  law. 
The  man  who  measures  each  step  by  the  law  is  not 
the  good  citizen:  he  who  watches  the  law,  the  law 
needs  to  watch.  There  is  a  ^‘spirit  of  the  laws,” 
something  which  one  might  call  a  moral  substance, 
which  shows  itself  in  a  spontaneous  faith  in  current 
institutions  and  ideals  and  fellow  citizens,  a  willing¬ 
ness  to  serve  them  and  work  with  them,  a  spirit  which 
society  can  neither  give  nor  take  away,  and  yet 
without  which  there  is  no  society.^ 

1  prefer  to  describe  this  spirit  as  a  moral  substance, 
because  when  we  look  into  it  more  closely  it  is  not 
simply  a  subjective  temper  but  also  a  world  of  objects 
engaging  each  individual’s  interest  and  will  in  logical 
independence  of  his  social  entanglements;  and  in  this 
world  of  objects  we  recognize  the  accumulated  goods 
of  both  religion  and  art.  These  goods  do  not  arise 

2  Mr.  Graham  Wallas  has  shown,  in  a  fascinating  study,  how  the 
practical  art  of  politics  is  concerned  with  what  is  instinctive  and  emo¬ 
tional,  not  alone  with  what  is  reasonable  or  reasoned.  He  regards  it 
as  somewhat  ominous  that  this  art  betakes  itself  so  frankly  to  “exploit¬ 
ing  the  irrational  elements  of  human  nature  which  have  hitherto  been 
the  trade  secret  of  the  elderly  and  disillusioned’’  (Human  Nature  in 
Politics,  p.  177).  The  chief  peril,  as  I  see  it,  is  not  that  political  mana¬ 
gers  will  address  themselves  to  the  unreasoned,  but  that  they  will  make 
a  wrong  guess  as  to  the  nature  of  the  unreasoned  sentiments  they  have 
to  deal  with.  When  one  leaves  the  rigorous  path  of  influencing  the  will 
of  one’s  fellows  by  argument  alone,  everything  depends  on  what  passions 
one  attributes  to  them.  If  with  Bolingbroke  (to  use  Mr.  Wallas ’s  illus¬ 
trations)  one  fancies  himself  dealing  with  Hhat  staring,  timid  creature. 


278 


AKT  AND  KELIGION 


apart  from  social  conditions,  and  are  commonly  reck¬ 
oned  as  social  products ;  but  they  appeal  to  the  indi¬ 
vidual  as  an  independently  appreciating  being,  as  an 
original  self.  Because  this  substance  has  always  per¬ 
vaded  society,  its  real  relation  to  society  is  obscured; 
and  an  attempt  to  define  society  apart  from  it  would 
be  felt  as  a  mutilation  of  society.  But  this  circum¬ 
stance  only  makes  stronger  the  contention  that  social 
good,  defined  apart  from  religion,  is  not  self-sufficient. 
And  I  shall  try  to  indicate  a  method  of  comparing  the 
relative  functions  of  each  which  will  admit  the 
comparison  with  justice  to  both  sides. 

It  is  characteristic  of  the  development  of  human 
beings  that  the  will  to  power  tends  to  assume  from  time 
to  time  the  character  of  some  leading  interest,  which 
becomes  the  center  of  values  for  the  whole  life.  This 
leading  interest  may  rise  to  the  level  of  a  passion.  In 
a  boy’s  growth  to  maturity  we  can  trace  a  series  of 
these  absorbing  concerns,  seldom  coincident  with  the 
tasks  set  for  him  by  his  elders,  but  merging  at  last 
(generally  speaking)  in  an  ‘ambition’  which  at  some 
time  or  other  struggles  for  supremacy  with  a  personal 

man,  ’  the  result  is  likely  to  be  supercilious  and  deceptive  political  action. 
But  if  with  Disraeli  one  realizes  that  ^Man  is  only  truly  great  when  he 
acts  from  the  passions,  never  irresistible  but  when  he  appeals  to  the 
imagination,’  there  is  room  at  least  for  a  generous  interpretation  of  the 
unreasoned  motive.  Benjamin  Kidd  seems  to  have  been  near  the  ground 
of  experience  in  judging  that  the  unreasoned  element  in  politics,  in  its 
last  analysis,  is  a  loyalty  of  religious  character.  The  ebullition  of 
national  feeling  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war  showed,  especially  in  France, 
how  politics  in  times  of  public  stress  tends  to  avow  a  lurking  religious 
ingredient,  while  patriotism  tends  to  coincide  for  the  moment  with 
religion. 


vox  DEI 


279 


affection.  To  these  two  major  passions,  ambition  and 
love,  correspond  two  major  groups  of  institutions, 
those  of  the  public  order  and  those  of  the  private 
order,  as  we  shall  name  them.  These  together  con¬ 
stitute  ^society’  in  so  far  as  society  has  a  definable 
entity  apart  from  religion  and  art. 

Now  what  society  does  for  human  nature  depends 
on  how  completely  it  can  satisfy  the  individual  will. 

A  man  can  be  said  to  be  saved  (to  adopt  the  religious 
terminology  for  the  sake  of  our  comparison)  not  alone 
when  he  is  reclaimed  from  rebellion  or  criminality; 
he  is  saved  in  so  far  as  he  is  not  wasted^  in  so  far  as  the  , 
human  material  in  him  gets  a  chance  at  self-expression  j 
and  utilization.  In  this  sense  the  question  for  society 
is  how  much  of  each  member  it  can  save,  not  merely  ' 
how  many  it  can  preserve  from  disaffection  and 
rebellion. 

Putting  the  question  in  this  way,  it  is  clear  that 
society  never  does  save  the  whole  man.  In  general, 
society  saves,  or  conserves,  as  much  of  a  man  as  can, 
at  any  time,  find  a  valuation.  It  saves,  as  much  as  it 
knows  how  to  use  or  esteem.  The  remainder  is  wasted. 
And  it  may  easily  be  that  the  better  the  case  any  set 
of  institutions  can  make  out  for  itself  as  a  whole,  the 
worse  the  plight  of  that  portion  of  human  nature  (if 
there  is  such  a  portion)  which  it  cannot  satisfy,  because 
it  does  not  understand. 

We  shall  attempt  to  estimate  what  part  of  human  \ 
nature  can  be  thus  ‘ saved’  by  the  public  and  the  private  \ 
orders,  at  their  best. 


CHAPTEE  XXXIV 


THE  PUBLIC  ORDEE  AND  THE 
PRIVATE  ORDER 

POLITICAL  and  economic  institutions  we  have 
recognized  as  the  particular  playground  and 
home  of  the  will  to  power,  so  far  transformed  that  the 
success  of  one  does  not  necessarily  mean  the  weakness 
or  defeat  of  another.  These  institutions  may  be 
described  as  the  ‘public  order’;  and  in  this  form,  the 
will  to  power  may  become  the  passion  of  ‘ambition.’ 
To  realize  his  ambition  an  individual  must  market  his 
talents,  i.e.,  put  them  into  a  form  in  which  they  serve 
other  men,  or  seem  to  do  so.  Hence  just  in  so  far  as  a 
man  can  be  summed  up  in  his  marketable  talents,  he 
can  find  satisfaction  in  the  public  order. 

The  world  grows  catholic  in  its  power  of  appre¬ 
ciation;  a  greater  variety  of  talent  finds  its  market. 
The  man  who  today  may  be  a  poet — and  make  a  living 
by  it — might  once  have  been  by  necessity  a  minstrel, 
a  priest,  or  a  cobbler :  the  public  order  has  not  always 
had  a  place  for  poets.  Even  now,  the  public  judgment 
of  beauty  is  so  far  uncertain,  and  therefore  imitative, 
that  the  artist  risks  the  fate  of  being  either  neglected 
or  lionized ;  there  is  not  as  yet  a  firm,  discriminating, 
and  sober  estimation  of  his  worth.  Apart  from  those 
who  despising  the  public  refuse  to  join  to  their  art 


THE  PUBLIC  OEDER  AND  PRIVATE  ORDER  281 

the  effort  to  be  intelligible  (I  am  not  speaking  of  that 
vulgar  inversion  of  motive  which  seeks  advertisement 
in  conspicuous  violence  to  common  standards),  there 
are  presumably  always  a  number  of  lost  poets, 
prophets,  philosophers  ^^of  whom  the  world  was  not 
worthy’^:  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  their  existence 
must  be  conjectural.  It  was  not  until  Greek  times  that 
the  man  whose  gift  for  pure  science  was  not  conjoined 
either  with  religious  inspiration  or  an  inherited  fortune 
could  find  a  footing:  and  even  now,  for  the  most  part, 
he  must  unite  this  gift  with  the  interest,  or  at  least 
the  occupation,  of  teaching, — usually  a  natural  and 
most  helpful  union,  sometimes  a  disastrous  one. 

Individuals  may  still  go  astray;  but  at  least  the 
class  has  come  to  its  own.  We  have  names  for  ^poet,’ 
‘artist,’  and  the  others;  we  know  the  type  of  service, 
and  value  it;  almost  we  have  conventionalized  the 
hardship  and  poverty  once  associated  with  it,  as  a 
bungling  penance.  But  what  of  the  services  for  which 
as  yet  no  category  exists  ?  Is  it  clear,  a  priori, 
that  I  must  fit  into  any  of  these  traditional  rubrics, 
“doctor,  lawyer,  merchant,  chief”?  If  none  of  these 
is  tempting,  the  public  order  still  bids  me  ‘  ‘  choose  ’  ’ ; — 
or  invent  and  persuade.  The  category  itself  becomes 
something  of  a  menace  through  the  type  it  attracts,  a 
type  which  may  repel  the  finest  quality  in  its  own  kind. 
Francis  Thompson  was  a  poet  by  nature,  if  ever  there 
was  a  poet;  yet  not  even  his  own  self-consciousness 
could  find  its  rightful  certainty  and  pride  until  the 
many  judgments  and  pressures  of  the  world  had 
harried  him  into  a  course  of  slow  self-destruction. 


282 


AET  AND  RELIGION 


The  marketable  man  is  never  the  complete  man  in  his 
uniqueness;  and  conversely  the  whole  man  is  never 
marketable. 

But  where  the  public  order  thus  largely  fails,  the 
private  order  wins  a  measure  of  success.  The  private 
order  comprises  the  institution  of  the  family  with  the 
quasi-institutions  of  friendship,  amusement,  and 
society  in  the  specific  sense.  Here  it  is  anything  but 
a  man^s  market-value  that  determines  his  survival. 
He  is  valued  as  much  for  what  he  cannot  express  as 
for  what  he  can.  It  is  the  ‘pilgrim  soul,^  unarrived, 
that  is  perceived  and  esteemed.  The  private  order 
has  its  dominant  passion;  it  attempts  to  satisfy  the 
whole  man  by  satisfying  his  sociability — or,  more 
particularly,  his  love.  The  instinct  we  call  love, 
whether  in  its  special  or  more  general  forms,  is  mani¬ 
fested  in  a  craving  which  relates  precisely  to  this 
unexpressed,  or  ‘subconscious^  region  of  the  will.  Its 
language  is  the  language  of  signs  and  symbols  rather 
than  of  words ;  and  where  it  adopts  words,  it  imposes 
on  them,  through  poetry,  the  character  of  symbols, 
with  the  task  of  carrying  unreachable  meanings. 

This  is  the  interpretation  which  society  puts  upon 
the  instincts  of  sex  and  parenthood.  What  love  wants 
is  a  mutuality  of  life  in  which  each  appreciates  in  the 
other  what  he  in  substance  is,  rather  than  what  he  does. 

Thus  the  private  order  is  adapted  to  save  much 
that  is  lost  in  the  public  order.  As  the  self  of  imme¬ 
diate  expression  can  reveal  more  than  is  seen  in  the 
self  of  marketable  technical  expression,  love  does  not 
make  its  judgment  or  its  choices  primarily  from  what 


THE  PUBLIC  OEDEK  AND  PRIVATE  ORDER  283 

it  finds  in  the  sphere  of  work;  it  looks  to  the  self  of 
play,  of  art,  of  bodily  beauty,  of  manner  and  carriage, 
emotion,  aspiration,  religious  feeling.  In  the  economic 
virtues,  the  ability  to  endure  hardship  and  to  use 
common  sense,  love  is  not  unconcerned;  negatively 
speaking,  the  beloved  person  must  not  fall  below  the 
average  standard  of  prudence,  competitive  spirit, 
persuasiveness,  efficiency.  For  these  are  essential 
parts  of  the  definition  of  a  human  being ;  they  are,  like 
the  courage  expected  by  chivalry,  a  test  of  the  quality 
of  the  self  of  sentiment.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  love 
must  be  ‘practical,’  and  takes  ambition  itself  under 
its  control:  but  these  things  have  no  part  in  defining 
the  principle  of  selection  itself.  The  family  envisages 
the  public  relations  of  its  members  within  its  own 
inclusive  understanding  of  them;  it  presupposes  the 
results  of  their  activity  there;  it  uses  these  results. 
But  it  subordinates  them  to  what  it  alone  can  see. 
So  far,  the  family  is  more  inclusive,  more  satisfying 
to  human  nature,  and  in  this  sense  greater  than  the 
State,  together  with  all  the  professional  and  indus¬ 
trial  groups  or  guilds  within  it  or  beyond  it. 

But  it  is  also  less  than  the  State,  in  so  far  as  the 
public  order  remains  to  it  a  mystery.  The  family  is 
unable  wholly  to  follow  in  thought  the  self  that  is 
valid  in  the  public  order,  and  estimate  its  achieve¬ 
ments.  The  man  who  goes  to  work,  goes  ‘out,’ — and 
into  another  sphere  of  thoughts  and  standards.  What 
the  family  grasps  and  uses  of  that  self  is  its  total 
achievement,  not  the  method  and  articulation  of  its 
work.  It  is  sometimes,  in  the  complexer  activities. 


284 


AKT  AND  RELIGION 


unable  to  estimate  even  the  moral  quality  of  that 
public  person;  we  have  grown  used  to  the  picture  of 
the  crook  who  remains  the  moral  hero  of  his  family 
circle  and  perhaps  of  his  friends  also.  It  tends  to  make 
its  own  loyalties  and  amenities  the  measure  of  the 
whole  character. 

Hence  the  public  order  sets  up  counter  claims;  and 
requires  that  all  love  shall  show  its  value  for 
ambition  or  public  service.  It  has  its  opinion  of  the 
over  domesticated  man.  The  State  has  allowed  the 
family  its  great  privacy  and  subconscious  develop¬ 
ment,  less  because  of  the  satisfaction  its  members 
found  there,  than  because  of  the  fact,  noted  by 
Aristotle,  that  the  strength  of  the  private  relation  is 
a  measure  of  the  possible  strength  of  the  public 
interest,  and  that  private  intercourse  brings  certain 
necessary  contributions  to  the  life  of  the  State. 

The  direct  question :  Which  is  your  more  real  self, 
that  of  the  public  or  that  of  the  private  order?  most 
persons  would  find  it  hard  to  answer.  It  may  be  that 
the  sexes  differ  in  their  natural  finding  of  the  dominat¬ 
ing  order.  But  for  both  men  and  women,  both  orders 
are  necessary  to  a  complete  personality,  and  in  the 
arrangements  of  life,  each  order,  and  each  passion, 
takes  its  turn  at  hegemony.  The  honors  are  divided 
by  alternation,  and  not  by  a  disjunctive  choice. 

But  this  solution  by  alternation  is  not  a  solution  of 
the  psychological  problem:  neither  order  is  capable 
of  including  the  other, — are  both  together,  in  their 
alternation,  capable  of  freeing  the  entire  man? 


CHAPTER  XXXV 


SOCIETY  AND  BEYOND  SOCIETY 

EVERYONE’S  daily  program  falls  into  an  alter¬ 
nation  between  the  public  and  the  private  order. 
This  is  not  a  matter  of  convenience  alone:  it  is  a 
psychological  necessity.  And  the  necessity  is  more 
than  a  need  of  supplementation.  It  is  true  that  each 
order  does,  in  the  way  we  have  described,  compensate 
the  individual  person  for  the  lacks  of  the  other  order, 
and  forms  a  refuge  from  it.  The  life  of  the  family 
is  narrow,  over-personal,  and  subjective,  and  creates 
a  need  which  the  public  activity  in  some  measure 
appeases.  The  public  order  is  hard,  over-impersonal, 
mechanical,  superficial,  relying  overmuch  on  the  suffi¬ 
ciency  of  analytical  intelligence :  it  drives  back  to  more 
complete  and  intimate  realities.  But  the  relations 
between  the  two  orders  are  deeper  than  this  of  supple¬ 
mentation.  For  neither,  without  the  other,  can  success¬ 
fully  do  even  its  own  part.  Each  to  some  extent  pre¬ 
supposes  the  other, — a  fact  which  is  not  wholly  ob¬ 
vious,  but  which  can  be  made  evident  by  considering 
what  each  order  requires. 

The  tendency  at  present  is  to  distinguish  sharply 
between  a  man’s  capacity  for  marketable  service  and 
his  j)rivate  life.  It  is  in  the  public  order  that  the 
maxim.  Business  is  business,  holds  good :  we  ask  what 


286 


AET  AND  KELIGION 


you  can  do,  and  if  you  do  that  well  we  ask  no 
further  questions,  and  assume  no  further  respon¬ 
sibilities.  There  is  a  great  relief  and  freedom  in  this ; 
‘  toleration  wins  more  by  it  than  by  any  other  drift 
of  the  time.  Because  of  the  cash-nexus,  with  its 
impersonality,  a  man  may  now  sell  his  labor,  as 
Arnold  Toynbee  pointed  out,  without  selling  himself. 
Yet  in  all  this  it  is  not  ignored,  but  assumed  as  under¬ 
stood,  that  the  success  of  any  man^s  service  depends 
on  a  state  of  mind  which  the  private  order  keeps  alive. 
I  do  not  mean  simply  recreation  and  rest,  though  this 
is  part  of  it:  I  mean  confidence,  independence,  and 
originality  of  mind.  What  any  man  brings  to  market 
is  something  which  he,  as  a  total  and  responsible  agent, 
can  perform;  he  brings  his  inventiveness  and  powers 
of  discretion.  The  least  of  public  servants  is  expected 
to  exercise  a  degree  of  mother-wit.  If  at  any  moment 
the  motive  force  of  the  public  order  should  be  reduced 
to  the  momentum  of  its  own  definitions,  its  wheels 
would  stop.^  It  is  an  undefined  contribution,  the  life 
conferred  on  the  mechanism,  including  the  power  of 
seeing  things  whole  and  judging  them  soundly  which, 
on  the  psychical  side  of  the  account,  is  exhausted  in 
the  course  of  a  day^s  work:  and  it  is  this  which  the 
private  order  must  be  counted  on  to  restore.  Success 
in  the  public  order  presupposes  a  state  of  mind  given 
by  the  private  order. 

1 1  am  told  that  syndicalism  in  France  and  Italy  knows  a  mode  of 
strike  in  which,  instead  of  refusing  to  obey  rules,  all  rules  are  literally 
obeyed, — and  no  more:  the  employer,  it  may  be  the  government,  is 
deprived  of  nothing  it  has  contracted  for,  but  only  of  judgment  and 
good  will. 


SOCIETY  AND  BEYOND  SOCIETY^ 


287 


But  does  success  within  the  private  order  presup¬ 
pose  a  state  of  mind  given  in  turn  by  the  public  order? 
What  corresponds  to  success  in  the  private  order  is 
simply  the  winning  of  love,  i.e.,  being  acceptable  or 
prized  as  a  companion.  And  in  judging  acceptability  ' 
the  private  order  is  indeed  likely  to  ask  few  questions 
about  the  nature  of  the  day^s  work.  Yet  acceptability 
builds  on  that  work  with  the  same  tacit  understanding. 
Here  again  I  do  not  refer  to  the  visible  or  invisible 
means  of  support  which  the  private  order  con¬ 
sumes:  I  mean,  again,  independence  and  reality  of 
mind.  Although  instinctively  one  expects  that  his  own 
liking  will  find  response,  one  is  always  more  or  less 
aware  that  this  response  is  conditional.  It  is  not  an 
axiom  that  one  must  have  any  friend  at  all.  If  such 
fortune  comes,  it  has  a  kind  of  corroborative  force :  to 
be  loved  is  a  high  order  of  validation.^  And  if  this 
private  world  of  mine  does  not  respond,  I  am  left 
curiously  uncertain  of  myself,  as  if  I  were  somehow 
unreal,  and  for  that  reason  unable  to  love  rightly. 
Love  ought  to  be  a  form  of  the  will  to  power;  and  my 
love  has  no  power.  I  find  myself  willing  to  suffer 
anything,  forgo  anything  for  the  sake  of  that  accept¬ 
ance  :  I  am  willing  to  forgo  anything  except  just  that 
companionship.  Yet  this  state  of  mind  is  the  symptom 
of  false  instinct.  I  should  know,  and  if  I  were  a  real 

2  Current  speech  has  phrases  which  suggest  more  or  less  vaguely  that 
some  objective  affirmation  is  contained  in  the  sentiment  of  personal 
liking.  Perhaps  the  vaguer  ones  are  more  nearly  accurate,  as  ‘  ‘  There 
is  something  to  him.  The  prestige  of  soldierdom  in  the  eyes  of  maiden¬ 
hood  is  of  course  the  most  conspicuous  instance  of  the  psychological 
principle. 


288 


AKT  AND  KELIGION 


person  would  know,  that  the  companionship  I  value 
must  come  as  a  result  of  first  being  independently  real. 
Hence  I  cannot  have  it  except  at  the  price  of  being 
independent  of  it.  I  must  be  in  truth,  and  not  in  atti¬ 
tude  simply,  ‘Hree  as  an  Arab^’  of  my  beloved.  And 
this  independence  can  only  come  through  having  an 
object  sufficiently  absorbing  and  responsive,  a  valid 
power  in  the  public  order. 

We  are  speaking  of  the  logic  of  our  commonest  social 
attitudes,  a  logic  which  we  breathe,  not  analyze.  Its 
sum  is  this :  that  each  order  accepts  and  uses  persons 
who  are  assumed,  and  must  be  assumed,  complete  and 
real  in  their  lives  in  the  other  order.  The  alternation 
into  which  life  falls  means  not  alone  that  we  are  finding 
a  freedom  in  each  order  not  found  in  the  other;  it 
means  also  that  we  are  becoming  in  each  order  what 
is  necessary  that  we  may  have  any  right  in  the  other. 
This  is  a  highly  effective  alternation;  and,  so  far  as 
we  can  sustain  ourselves  in  this  world  with  becoming, 
rather  than  being,  it  is  a  self-sufficient  routine,  pro¬ 
viding  within  itself  for  all  its  own  necessities, — and 
also  for  its  own  growth.  To  this  extent,  society  is  an 
organism. 

But  the  same  analysis  will  show  where  the  organism 
fails.  The  fact  of  perpetual  alternation  is  itself 
ominous:  it  confesses  not  alone  the  constant  under¬ 
mining  of  satisfaction  that  Schopenhauer  pointed  out ; 
it  confesses  the  persistent  crumbling  of  our  qualifica¬ 
tion; — that  qualification  we  must  renew  by  returning 
to  its  source.  And  at  its  best  this  qualification  is,  as 


SOCIETY  AND  BEYOND  SOCIETY  289 

we  said,  mainly  a  hope  and  a  becoming.  Your  guest 
appears  in  your  circle  as  one  who  presumably  has 
done  his  day’s  work,  and  has  done  it  well.  You  intro¬ 
duce  him  as  Mr.  Blank,  engineer,  or  as  Herr  Ge- 
heimrat.  Dr.  So-and-so :  he  at  once  receives  credit  for 
all  that  engineers  or  Geheimrats  are  supposed  to  be. 
These  categories  have  their  function:  they  impose 
upon  individuals  typical  characters  which  may  fit  so 
loosely  as  to  amount  to  caricatures,  but  they  also  im¬ 
pose  upon  them  ideals  which  they  find  themselves 
bound  to  serve.  No  sooner  is  it  understood  that  M.  is 
a  ‘scientist’  than  the  imagination  of  his  new  acquaint¬ 
ance  finishes  the  picture,  surrounds  him  with  records 
and  apparatuses,  adjusts  the  symbolic  microscope  to 
his  eye,  and  spreads  upon  the  pages  of  learned  journals 
the  announcements  of  his  discoveries.  And  he,  how¬ 
ever  exasperated  or  amused  by  the  inept  trappings  of 
this  vision,  finds  himself  obliged  to  respond  to  the 
essence  of  the  faith  it  represents :  he  sees  that  it  is  in 
substance  an  appeal  to  his  good  faith  as  a  member  of 
that  social  world.  Whatever  is  vague,  idly  classifica- 
tory,  and  vain  in  that  picture  may  be  corrected  or 
ignored ;  it  still  searches  out  what  is  merely  empty  or 
merely  promissory  in  himself.  He  has  no  right  in  that 
place  unless  somewhere  he  has  some  stable  character, 
founded  on  achievement  not  merely  accepted  as  such, 
but  real.  He  must  bring  to  that  social  life  a  validation 
of  spirit  which  not  even  the  public  order  can  furnish 
him,  dealing  as  this  order  does  partly  in  coin  and 
partly  in  approximations  and  hopes.  He  has  need  of 
an  absolute. 


290 


AKT  AND  KELIGION 


I  conclude  that  in  two  ways  the  social  world,  at  its 
best,  fails  to  satisfy,  and  hence  to  release  or  save  the 
human  being.  It  fails  to  provide  within  its  own 
resources  the  reality  and  independence  which  it  de¬ 
mands,  and  in  fact  uses;  it  is  living  upon  borrowed 
capital.  And  given  this  capital,  it  still  fails  to  satisfy ; 
because  while  the  public  order  lends  to  the  private 
order  a  scope  and  expression  that  the  private  order 
lacks,  it  does  not  provide  scope  and  expression  for  just 
that  part  of  the  human  being  wherein  the  private  order 
supplements  the  public  order.  What  the  public  order 
fails  to  see  is  perceived  and  appreciated  in  the 
family, — that  is  true :  but  the  family  is  unable  to  give 
this  part  its  needed  currency,  or  set  it  to  work  in  the 
world.  This  residue,  perhaps  an  infinite  residue,  is 
hence  imperfectly  set  free. 

And  we  may  also  see  the  conditions  under  which 
these  defects  could  be  made  good.  As  the  instinctive 
life  of  man  everywhere  demands  an  environment 
within  which  it  can  be  active,  and  as  the  rule  prevails 
that  the  most  inward  and  hidden  capacities  demand 
and  respond  to  the  widest  environment,^  there  must : 
be  an  objective  arena  of  unlimited  scope  for  the  lost 
powers.  And  this  arena  must  be  one  in  which  a  veri¬ 
table  and  unqualified  success  of  some  sort  is  possible — 
a  sufficient  guarantee  of  reality;  and  such  a  success  as 
might  enlist  a  more  comprehensive  passion  than  either 
the  public  or  the  private  order  calls  forth — hence  a 
genuine  independence.  There  must  be,  in  brief,  an 

3  Cf.  The  Philosophical  Review,  May,  1916,  p.  490. 


SOCIETY  AND  BEYOND  SOCIETY  291 

adequate  and  attainable  object  for  the  human  will  to 
power. 

And  in  two  ways  also,  experience  has  attempted  to 
supply  such  an  arena  and  such  an  object.  First,  there  ^  ' 
are  parts  of  the  world  more  plastic  than  others,  more  ' 
amenable  to  wish  and  fancy ;  in  these,  men  have  learned 
to  create  a  career  both  of  sense  and  of  idea,  in  which 
their  desires  at  once  chained  to  the  real  and  expanding 
into  the  infinite  find  rest  in  the  midst  of  their  own 
motion.  Play  first  opens  this  vista,  giving  as  we  have 
said  the  habit  of  success :  and  then  play  is  transmuted 
into  art  as  the  growth  of  idea  outruns  the  literal 
possibilities  of  the  material.  Art  is  the  region  which 
man  has  created  for  himself,  wherein  he  can  find  scope 
for  unexpressed  powers,  and  yet  win  an  absolute 
success,  in  testimony  of  his  own  reality.  One  whcTx 
merely  conquers  a  world  may  still  wish  for  more  1 
worlds  to  conquer;  but  if,  as  artist,  one  has  created 
a  world,  the  will  to  power  has  reached  an  ultimate  goal. 

Second,  religion,  whose  mission  is  continuous  with 
that  of  art  and  which  some  conceive  as  a  developed 
poetry.  But  religion  intends  to  transcend  the  imagi¬ 
nation,  and  to  reveal  a  world  which  has  an  independent 
reality;  herein  it  exceeds  the  scope  of  art.  More 
completely  than  any  part  of  the  private  order,  religion 
promises  to  recognize  all  the  resources  of  subconscious 
capacity:  ^^All  men  ignored  in  me.  That  I  was  worth 
to  God.’^  It  intends  to  save  the  entire  man,  without 
remainder;  and  if  it  can  offer  to  this  entire  self  the 
kind  of  scope,  actuality,  and  permanence  aiforded  by 
the  State,  it  may  fulfil  its  promise. 


292 


AKT  AND  RELIGION 


Art  and  religion  have  their  own  institutions,  and  are 
commonly  included,  as  we  said,  among  the  resources 
of  ^society.’  But  both  appeal  primarily  and  directly 
to  the  exploring  and  originative  self  which  social 
inheritance,  authority,  and  imitation  can  help  only 
after  it  has  engaged  for  itself  with  its  own  realities. 
Art  and  religion  are  always  in  this  sense  ^beyond 
society’;  and  dealing  with  them,  the  individual  also 
(not  in  his  private  capacity)  is  beyond  society  and 
beyond  the  State. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 


THE  WORLD  OF  REBIRTH 

IT  would  be  a  mistake  to  think  of  religion  and  art 
as  arriving  late  upon  the  scene  of  history,  as  high 
and  last  products  of  evolution,  to  take  care  of  those 
fragments  of  human  nature  left  unsatisfied  by  the 
social  order.  We  would  better  not  try  to  date  their 
arrival  unless  we  are  prepared  to  date  the  rise  of 
reason;  but  in  any  event,  they  arrive  early:  as  soon 
as  man  is  ready  to  contemplate  his  experience  ‘as  a 
whole’  they  are  there.  They  undertake  to  provide  for 
the  whole  creature  not  for  remainders:  and  as  the 
various  social  interests  and  institutions  set  up  inde¬ 
pendent  menages,  religion  and  art  take  care  of 
residues  simply  because  they  continue  to  be  responsible 
for  the  whole.  And  while  in  their  earliest  identifiable 
forms  they  may  seem  simply  to  be  playing  about  the 
horizon  of  consciousness  like  so  much  heat  lightning, 
it  is  because  the  forces  at  work  everywhere  within  the 
horizon  become  visible  there.  The  rim  contains  all 
that  is  inside;  and  if  the  human  world-picture  or  the 
scheme  of  human  purposes  has  a  conceptual  rim,  it  is 
their  work. 

I  say  their  work,  because  at  first  religion  and  art 
co-operate  in  providing  that  “objective  arena”  we 
were  calling  for, — an  arena  adequate  for  the  whole 


294 


AKT  AND  KELIGION 


human  spirit,  and  so  by  implication  for  any  possible 
lost  powers.  Myth,  for  example,  is  such  a  joint 
product,  neither  pure  art  nor  pure  religion,  repre¬ 
senting  a  domain  largely  imaginary  and  yet  partly 
coincident  with  reality  supersensible  and  super-social ; 
and  in  the  world  of  myth  the  human  mind  may  be 
regarded  as  occupied  in  staking  out  cosmic  claims 
wherein  desire  and  hope  can  expand  without  limit. 
But  myth  affords  a  rather  meager  diet  for  the  will; 
and  although  it  contains  in  symbol  the  promise  of  the 
literal  achievement  of  the  future,  it  would  hardly  have 
flourished  as  it  did  had  there  not  been  a  more  concrete 
satisfaction  behind  it.  This  more  concrete  satisfaction 
was  found  in  the  direct  regulation  of  social  life  from 
above  by  conceptions  whose  origin  was  at  once  reli¬ 
gious  and  aesthetic,  conceptions  in  which  every  man 
could  share  as  he  could  share  in  the  ideas  of  the  sacred 
epic,  but  in  this  case  he  could  share  actively,  and  not 
only  as  one  regulated,  but  also  as  regulator. 

I  am  thinking  of  the  stage  in  which  all  custom  was 
sacred  custom  and  all  law  sacred  law.  And  I  am  think¬ 
ing  of  the  fact  that  these  bodies  of  regulation  were 
not  simply  as  we  commonly  picture  them  a  mould  cast 
over  men’s  lives,  but  a  career  for  their  wills.  As  a 
matter  of  course  the  law  is  something  which  men  in 
general  obey,  for  the  law  has  power  behind  it;  but 
then,  law  is  also  something  which  men  transmit  and 
interpret,  even  if  they  do  not  make  it,  and  so  far  every 
man  shares  in  the  wielding  of  that  power  whatever  it 
may  be.  Now  when  the  power  behind  the  law  is  a 
religious  power;  when  as  the  divine  Svord’  the  law 


.  THE  WOKLD  OF  KEBIKTH 


295 


has  mana  in  it;  when  learning  it  has  the  value  of 
communion  with  the  divine  thinker,  and  sometimes 
confers  the  power  to  work  miracles  by  the  sacred 
syllables  alone,  then  to  stand  at  the  source  of  the  law, 
whether  as  authors  or  transmitters,  is  to  touch  an 
instrument  of  unmeasured  potency.  There  was  a  time 
when  every  man  was  expected  to  assume  this  position, 
though  there  were  also  specialists  in  the  law;  and  to 
this  end,  every  man  must  receive  a  legal  education, — 
he  must  he  ‘initiated’  into  the  sacred  traditions  of  his 
tribe.  As  compared  with  our  own,  this  educational 
process  was  brief,  solemn,  and  intense;  and  further, 
it  left  an  abiding  mark.  The  boy  emerged  from  it  a 
man.  It  was  his  second  birth.^  He  was  coming  into 
his  social  powers ;  but  he  was  coming  into  them  through 
first  reaching  a  more  ultimate  power. 

Looking  upon  the  law  as  we  now  do,  it  might  not  be 
wholly  easy  to  see  in  it  a  sphere  for  a  passionate 
ambition  transcending  that  of  the  social  order.  Still 
less,  if  we  adopt  the  prevalent  view  of  early  law  as 
a  thing  dealing  chiefly  with  terrors,  consisting  for 
the  most  part  of  tabus,  prohibitions  accompanied  by 

1  The  conception  of  rebirth  first  appears  in  history  in  celebration 
of  this  event.  In  the  law  books  of  India  we  have  the  developed  account 
of  a  conception  already  ancient.  ‘  ‘  Their  first  birth,  ’  ’  says  the 
Vasishtha  Dharmasastra  speaking  of  the  three  upper  castes,  ‘^is  from 
their  mother;  their  second  from  their  investiture  with  the  sacred  girdle. 
In  that  second  birth,  the  Savitri  (verse  of  the  Eig  Veda)  is  the  mother, 
but  the  teacher  is  said  to  be  the  father.  Through  that  which  resides 
above  the  navel  his  offspring  is  produced  when  he  initiates  Brahmanas, 
when  he  teaches  them,  when  he  causes  them  to  offer  oblations,  when  he 
makes  them  holy.’’  (Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  xiv,  p.  9.) 


296 


AKT  AND  KELIGION 


threats,  and  consistent  with  the  theory  that  religion 
arises  in  the  instinct  of  fear.  But  it  is  not  alone  in  the 
Hebrew  songs  that  we  find  declarations  of  love  for  and 
delight  in  the  law  inexplicable  by  any  such  views,  yet 
seeming  to  have  something  more  than  a  rhetorical 
basis.  We  have  to  remember  that  this  initiation  con¬ 
centrated  into  itself  all  the  new  vistas  and  liberties 
that  come  with  the  advent  of  maturity.  The  physical 
transition  of  puberty  is,  in  warmer  countries,  com¬ 
monly  much  rapider  than  with  us ;  the  mental  liberation 
is  felt  with  corresponding  keenness.  But  the  expe¬ 
rience  is  not  merely  subjective.  Law  presupposes  a 
very  substantial  form  of  human  self-contemplation. 
The  learner ^s  eyes  are  opened:  he  looks  out  into  a 
world  of  objects  which  have  always  been  around  him, 
but  uncomprehended, — the  shapes  of  tribal  life  in  its 
cycle  of  generations,  and  the  principles  of  its  structure, 
not  tangible  and  transitory  but  intelligible  and  perma¬ 
nent.  He  sees  himself  a  responsible  agent  in  a  tribal 
destiny  which  may  have  had  a  beginning  in  the  dawn 
of  time  but  which  has  no  terminable  future.  And  he 
is  an  irresistible  agent  so  far  as  he  himself  can  give 
birth  to  thoughts  such  as  all  members  of  this  undjdng 
community  are  bound  to  worship  and  obey.  He  finds 
himself  emerging  into  the  only  domain  in  which 
unlimited  power  is  possible  to  a  finite  being,  the  world 
governed  by  ideas.  Through  the  weakest  and  dimmest 
part  of  his  nature  he  is  becoming  strong,  because  he  is 
becoming  partner  with  his  gods  and  perceives,  though 
faint  and  far-off,  the  principle  of  their  omnipotence. 


THE  WORLD  OF  REBIRTH 


297 


It  is  thus  not  wholly  without  reason  that  he  claims  to 
have  found  in  the  law  a  moment  of  absolute  satis¬ 
faction.  His  second  birth  as  contrasted  with  his  first 
may  with  some  justification  be  described  as  ^Heal, 
exempt  from  age  and  death.  (Manu,  S.  B.  E.,  xxv, 
p.  57.) 

This  transition  is  in  substance  the  same  as  that  which 
we  now  often  speak  of  as  conversion.  In  all  ages, 
adolescence,  recapitulating  race  history,  finds  religion 
betimes  on  the  scene,  offering  its  own  career  to  the 
will  in  terms  of  a  law  of  life  that  runs  deeper  than  the 
law  of  the  land.  Conversion,  let  us  note,  is  possible 
only  when  one  can  get  a  reflective  view  of  human 
existence  in  its  natural  round,  its  cost  in  labor,  thought, 
and  pain,  and  its  margin  of  aspiration.  It  comes  to 
adolescence  because  adolescence  has  for  the  first  time 
the  data  for  this  reflection  and  the  capacity  of  full 
self-consciousness.^  To  be  mature  is  to  see  the 
pleasure  of  life  in  the  setting  of  its  labors ;  to  be 
adolescent  is  to  have  sufficient  vigor  to  welcome  it  all. 
To  be  converted  is  to  achieve  this  welcome,  to  catch 
the  spirit  of  the  world  in  full  view  of  both  its  hardships 
and  its  allurements.  It  is  to  perceive  the  law  of  the 
whole  process  in  such  a  light  that  to  live  by  it  and  to 
promote  it  takes  immediate  precedence  of  every  other 

2  This  is  just  about  all  the  truth  there  is  in  that  dictum  of  Paulsen’s 
that  conversion  presupposes  the  world-weariness  of  a  blase  ciyilization, — 
with  the  conclusion  that  the  Germanic  peoples  have  never  been  truly- 
converted.  Ethics,  Book'l,  ch.  iv.  He  was  speaking,  however,  of  con¬ 
version  to  Christianity,  a  somewhat  different  matter,  of  which  more 
later  on.  What  conversion  presupposes  is  the  power  of  self-conscious 
reflexion  on  human  destiny. 


298 


AKT  AND  KELIGION 


satisfaction,  and  especially  of  love  and  ambition,  the 
passions  of  the  social  order. 

We  may  still  learn  something  of  the  nature  of  onr 
^ moral  substance’  from  early  forms  in  which  this  law 
was  cast. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 


THE  SACRED  LAW 

A  RANDOM  page  or  two  is  sufficient  to  convince 
any  reader  that  the  flavor  of  the  sacred  law 
books  of  the  world  is  unique,  whether  or  not  it  is  to 
his  relish.  As  compared  with  any  modern  statute 
book,  one  is  impressed  by  the  mixture  of  the  solemn 
and  the  trivial,  and  by  the  absence  of  reference  either 
to  individual  rights  or  to  social  welfare  as  deliberate 
ends.  The  modern  law  is  largely  an  embodiment  of 
the  social  motives :  the  ancient  law  is  largely  an 
embodiment  of  that  wherein  religion  and  art  differ 
from  society  in  their  appeal  to  the  will.  It  is  just 
this  which  makes  it  particularly  valuable  for  our 
present  enquiry. 

As  typical  of  what  to  our  consciousness  are  the  least 
profitable  elements  in  the  sacred  law,  let  us  take  this 
list  of  the  duties  of  a  Snataka,  a  twice-born  man  who 
has  finished  his  studentship : 

Let  him  not  beg  from  anybody,  except  from  a  king  and 
a  pupil; 

Let  him  not  dwell  together  with  a  person  whose  clothes 
are  foul; 

Let  him  not  step  over  a  stretched  rope  to  which  a  calf  is 
tied ; 

Let  him  not  spit  into  water; 


300 


AKT  AND  KELIGION 


Let  him  eat  his  food  facing  the  east ;  silently  let  him  swallow 
the  entire  mouthful,  taking  it  up  with  four  fingers  and  a 
thumb;  and  let  him  not  make  a  noise  while  eating; 

Let  him  not  dine  together  with  his  wife,  else  his  children 
will  be  destitute  of  manly  vigor; 

Let  him  not  ascend  a  tree ;  let  him  not  descend  into  a  well ; 
let  him  not  blow  the  fire  with  his  mouth ; 

Let  him  not  ascend  an  unsafe  boat,  or  any  unsafe  convey¬ 
ance  ; 

Let  him  disdain  assemblies  and  crowds ; 

Let  him  not  pass  between  the  fire  and  a  Brahmana,  nor 
between  two  fires,  nor  two  Brahmanas ; 

Let  him  not  cross  a  river  swimming ; 

Let  him  not  set  out  on  a  journey  when  the  sun  stands  over 
the  trees; 

When  he  has  risen  in  the  last  watch  of  the  night  and  has 
recited  the  Veda,  he  shall  not  lie  down  again. 

It  might  be  straining  a  point  to  call  this  a  mixture 
of  the  solemn  and  the  trivial.  Apart  from  sporadic 
traces  of  ancient  tabus,  it  belongs  to  the  later,  metic¬ 
ulous  stages  of  law-making,  and  the  gravamen  of 
profound  human  issues  is  lacking.  The  primitive 
decalogue,  or  the  Twelve  Tables  of  Eome,  would  give 
us  a  different  proportion;  but  in  no  case  would  we 
find  a  basis  of  social  utility. 

Most  certainly,  religion  was  regarded  as  highly 
useful :  it  offered  itself  as  a  means  to  the  ‘  ^  great  prac¬ 
tical  ends’’  of  life, — subsistence,  tribal  increase,  suc¬ 
cess  in  war  and  other  enterprises :  any  god  worth  the 
name  would  be  of  help  in  such  matters.  Eeligion  had 
no  scorn  for  utility.  Yet  I  repeat  my  belief  that  the 
sacred  law  books  of  the  world  are  closed  with  seven 
seals  to  those  who  try  to  see  in  them  social  instru- 


THE  SACRED  LAW 


301 


ments,  however  crude,  for  reaching  social  goods. 
Religion  had  ends  of  its  own:  its  utility  was  a  conse¬ 
quence.  All  the  social,  even  the  physical  ends  of  life, 
once  caught  in  the  perspective  of  the  sacred  concerns 
remain  incidents  in  the  profounder  economy.  When 
eating  and  food-getting  have  once  become  implicated 
in  the  circuits  of  mana,  they  never  quite  return  to  the 
status  of  simple  physical  satisfaction.^  Religion 
undertakes  not  to  disregard  utility,  nor  yet  to  follow 
it,  but  rather  to  give  laws  to  utility,  by  conferring  upon 
all  subordinate  ends  the  quality  of  its  own  inter¬ 
pretation  of  the  will  to  power. 

What  this  interpretation  is,  early  religion  itself  had 
no  perfect  way  of  expressing.  When  it  tries  to  give 
reasons  for  obedience,  it  commonly  presents  its  case 
in  highly  utilitarian  fashion :  as  a  system  of  rewards 
and  punishments  often  frankly  material  in  quality, 
religious  law  not  infrequently  proclaims  the  advan¬ 
tages  of  holiness  as  the  best-found  way  to  social  goods 
(and  especially  to  esteem)  or  to  the  joys  of  heaven, 

1  The  same  may  be  said  of  evils  and  wrongs  as  of  goods.  A  crime 
does  not  lose  its  basis  in  physical  injury,  nor  does  the  punishment  of 
crime  east  loose  from  the  feeling  of  resentment;  but  the  whole  situation 
acquires  a  wider  meaning  when  the  interest  of  the  deities  is  involved. 
Speaking  of  the  sacred  law  of  early  Rome,  Professor  Henry  Goudy  says: 
‘^It  punished  murder,  for  it  was  the  taking  of  a  god-given  life;  the 
sale  of  a  wife  by  her  husband,  for  she  had  become  his  partner  in  all 
things  human  and  divine;  the  lifting  of  a  hand  against  a  parent,  for 
it  was  subversive  of  the  first  bond  of  society  and  religion, — the  rever¬ 
ence  due  by  a  child  to  those  to  whom  he  owed  his  existence;  incestuous 
connexions,  for  they  defiled  the  altar;  the  false  oath  and  the  broken 
vow,  for  they  were  an  insult  to  the  divinities  invoked;  the  displacement 
of  a  boundary  or  a  landmark,  not  so  much  because  the  act  was  provoca¬ 
tive  of  feud  as  because  the  march-stone  itself,  as  the  guarantee  of  peace¬ 
ful  neighborhood,  was  under  the  guardianship  of  the  gods.” 


302 


AKT  AND  KELIGION 


or  to  both.  From  the  standpoint  of  a  wise  social 
philosophy  it  seems  obvious  enough  that  the  sacred 
law  is  but  making  a  shrewd  appeal  to  the  ingrained 
love  of  approval  to  drive  with  the  developing  indi¬ 
viduality  of  the  self-conscious  animal  a  good  social 
bargain;  it  is  arranging  that  his  egoism  and  vanity 
shall  turn  the  social  mill. 

I  shall  not  debate  the  matter  at  length.  But  I  may 
point  out  that  in  the  midst  of  the  welter  of  banal 
motives,  it  is  clear  that  transposing  the  prospect  of 
reward  to  the  transcendent  alters  its  psychological 
quality.  One  who  daily  recites  the  Savitri  verse  during 
three  years,  untired,  is  assured  by  Manu  that  he  ^‘will 
enter  after  death  the  highest  Brahman,  move  as  free 
as  air,  and  assume  an  ethereal  form’’;  the  pitiable 
bathos  and  inadequacy  of  this  dazzle  of  supernatural 
potency  stamp  it  as  an  attempt  less  to  describe  a  literal 
result  than  to  encourage  an  adherent  germ  of  some¬ 
thing  different  from  the  visible  and  material  satis¬ 
faction.  And  while  the  esteem  of  the  multitude  seems 
to  have  been  in  the  eyes  of  the  Eastern  saint  a  most 
impressive  reward,  so  much  so  that  his  type  names, 
the  ‘‘princely  man”  of  Confucius,  the  Aharat,  etc., 
were  names  of  social  distinction  as  well  as  of  religious 
attainment,  the  law  occasionally  hits  upon  a  clear 
statement  to  the  effect  that  it  aims  less  to  provide 
respect  than  to  make  men  worthy  of  respect.  “He 
who  knows  and  follows  the  law  is  a  righteous  man: 
he  becomes  most  worthy  of  praise  in  this  world  and 
after  death  gains  heaven.”  Such  is  the  opening  and 
wholly  typical  appeal  of  the  Yasishtha  Hharmasastra. 


THE  SACRED  LAW 


303 


II 

If  any  evidence  of  the  non-utilitarian  basis  of  the 
sacred  law  were  needed  beyond  the  character  of  the 
laws  themselves,  it  might  be  found,  together  with  some 
positive  light  upon  the  religious  end,  in  certain  inklings 
of  its  psychological  origin.  The  law  is  sometimes 
said  to  have  its  source  (or  organ  of  reception)  in  the 
‘souP  as  distinct  from  the  prudential  reason.  Now 
the  human  being,  if  we  bring  together  the  testimony 
of  ancient  religions,  is  provided  with  a  great  variety 
of  souls.  But  in  general,  the  soul  is  that  part  of  a  man 
which  holds  conversation  with  the  supersensible  world : 
and  only  a  being  with  a  soul  can  either  receive  the  law, 
whose  origin  is  in  heaven,  or  appreciate  and  be 
governed  by  it.  One  of  the  best  literary  instances  of 
the  soul  engaged  in  devising  and  promulgating  the  law 
is  found  in  the  sayings  of  Ptah  Hotep.  For  Egypt 
had  an  especially  usable  development  of  the  soul-idea 
(and  it  would  be  hard  to  say  how  much  of  moral 
progress  depends  on  the  discovery  of  usable  concep¬ 
tions).  Among  the  Egyptian  souls  there  was  one,  the 
which  was  particularly  concerned  with  moral  and 
SBsthetic  discrimination.  To  ‘^offend  the  ka^’  was 
about  the  same  as,  with  us,  ^^to  offend  the  finer  feel- 

2  The  lea  is  defined  as  the  immaterial  self  or  double,  having  the  form 
of  the  body,  but  being  without  the  power  of  acting  upon  matter.  Its 
action  therefore  must  be  wholly  persuasive  or  advisory,  and  perhaps 
for  this  reason  it  was  at  the  same  time  the  object  of  a  somewhat  chival¬ 
rous  regard,  and  a  source  of  the  degree  of  chivalry  attained  (if  I  may 
be  allowed  the  anachronism)  by  the  ancient  Egyptians.  The  personal 
affections  centered  about  the  ha,  and  it  received  the  chief  tendance  after 
death. 


304 


AET  AND  EELIGION 


ings^’;  and  reverence  for  the  ha  implied  a  careful 
listening  to  the  dictates  of  a  religiously  sensitized 
conscience.  The  ha  takes  under  its  protection  the 
otherwise  defenceless  rights  of  persons  and  occasions, 
even  to  the  requirements  of  courtesy.  For  example, 
Ptah  Hotep,  not  himself  a  priest  but  a  wholly  com¬ 
petent  interpreter  of  the  moral  tradition  of  Egypt, 
gives  instructions  to  his  son  thus : 

Do  not  pierce  the  host  at  table  with  many  glances :  it  is  an 
abomination  to  the  ha  for  them  to  be  directed  at  him.  .  .  . 

Diminish  not  the  time  of  following  the  heart  (i.e.,  of 
recreation)  for  that  is  an  abomination  to  the  ha,  that  its 
moment  should  be  disregarded.  .  .  . 

The  washing  of  the  heart  shall  not  be  repeated:  it  is 
abomination  to  the  ha.  .  .  .  (The  washing  of  the  heart  being 
words  uttered  to  give  vent  to  feelings  angry  or  otherwise.) 

It  is  the  ha  that  openeth  the  hands  of  the  host.  .  .  . 

It  is  evident  that  the  ha  is  the  guardian  not  alone  of 
the  uncodified  obligations  of  loyalty,  but  also  of  the 
generous  and  outgoing  impulses,  and  of  the  more 
intangible  demands  of  the  relation  of  guest  to  host, 
etc.  It  is  clearly,  too,  a  function  which  can  be  appealed 
to  only  with  some  maturity  of  experience.  Yet  it  acts 
dogmatically;  it  judges  the  quality  of  an  act  without 
regard  to  its  experienced  utility;  the  standard  of 
judgment  seems  to  be  at  once  religious  and  aesthetic, — 
an  undistinguished  union  of  the  two  in  which  now  one 
and  now  the  other  is  predominant. 

This  is  not  a  type  of  judgment  with  which  we  are 
unfamiliar.  For  good  or  ill,  this  ancient  religious 
legislation  is  the  first  great  extension  over  human  life 


THE  SACKED  LAW 


305 


of  the  sway  of  a  priori  reason, — that  is  to  say,  the 
assertion  of  thought,  in  advance  of  trial  and  error,  that 
something  will  necessarily  be  found  true  or  valuable 
within  experience.  If  anything  is  true  a  priori,  it  is, 
of  course,  true  for  all  time  and  in  all  circumstances. 
Accordingly,  a  sense  of  unrestricted  validity  enters 
into  this  legislation,  and  accompanies  it  unflinchingly 
into  its  profoundest  absurdities.  Questions  of  scope 
aside,  it  must  he  agreed  that  if  the  human  will  is  to 
find  any  spot  of  complete  mastery,  it  can  only  be 
possible  through  some  such  grasp  of  values  that 
endure:  to  adapt  a  phrase  of  John  Locke’s,  men  can 
only  be  born  free  as  they  are  born  thus  rational  and 
prophetic.  Whether  we  can  grasp  any  such  durable 
principles  is  a  question  of  fact  not  here  in  debate. 
But  it  is  clear  that  so  far  as  a  people  had  in  common 
the  same  type  of  sensitivity,  the  same  ha,  the  same 
necessary  interests  at  the  basis  of  the  SBsthetic  judg¬ 
ments  therein  uttered,  the  pronouncements  of  any 
healthy  ha  would  tend  to  be  good  for  all  others.  And 
a  prevalent  respect  for  such  utterances  would  tend 
to  make  people  plastic  toward  them,  and  so  to  lend 
to  one  who  spoke  authentically  in  the  name  of  the  ha 
the  power  of  an  artist  over  his  material.  The  life- 
forms  of  a  social  group  under  these  conditions  would 
become  the  medium  for  an  art  in  which  nothing  desir¬ 
able  could  be  excluded  as  impossible,  and  in  which 
everything  desirable  could  be  expected  to  last. 

Such  seems,  in  fact,  to  have  been  the  position 
assumed  for  itself  by  the  sacred  law.  And  in  Ptah 
Hotep  himself  I  find  the  most  ancient  expression  of 


306 


AET  AND  KELIGION 


the  prophetic  consciousness  with  regard  to  his  own 
precepts.  ^^The  quality  of  truth/’  he  said,  ‘4s  among 
their  excellences.  Nor  shall  any  word  that  hath  here 
been  set  down  cease  out  of  this  land  forever.” 

Ill 

In  the  amenity  and  chivalry  of  the  Egyptian  spirit 
it  would  be  hard  to  say  whether  the  aesthetic  or  the 
moral  motive  is  dominant.  But  in  the  laws  of  Persia 
and  of  India  there  are  frequent  passages  in  which  the 
aesthetic  sense,  the  regard  for  decorum,  the  desire  for 
purity  amounting  at  times  to  inconceivable  squeamish¬ 
ness,  is  in  control.  The  list  of  duties  of  a  Snataka 
above  quoted  is  an  example  of  such  almost  purely 
cesthetic  apriorism.  These  alleged  duties  are  largely 
dictates  derived  from  a  notion  of  personal  dignity,  a 
form  of  art  which  decrees  what  external  carriage  shall 
be  taken  as  a  symbol  of  an  internal  ascendency.  To 
step  over  a  stretched  rope  to  which  a  calf  is  tied  will 
be  admitted  hazardous  if  dignity  is  to  be  preserved; 
and  perhaps  an  exceptionally  holy  man  would  need 
to  be  reminded  of  the  contingency.  Such  rules  would 
have  the  incidental  utility  of  keeping  countenance  with 
the  bystanders;  but  as  is  always  the  case  in  aesthetic 
judgments,  the  feelings  of  the  bystanders  have  a  dis¬ 
coverable  and  defensible  basis.  By  undertaking  some¬ 
thing  beyond  his  physical  powers  the  holy  man  brings 
discredit  both  upon  himself  and  upon  his  office;  for 
nothing  more  quickly  disproves  the  divine  quality  than 
an  inability  to  recognize  one’s  own  sphere  of  validity 
and  its  limits.  Climbing  trees,  swimming  rivers. 


THE  SACKED  LAW 


307 


ascending  nnsafe  boats  and  the  like,  are  for  the 
experimental  stages  of  yonth,  not  for  high-caste  honse- 
holders  with  a  tradition  to  snstain.  With  us,  dignity 
is  a  far  less  vulnerable  essence  and  so  requires  no  such 
scrupulous  protection ;  but  we  have  had  the  advantage 
of  learning  from  the  Stoics  that  ^‘freedom  from  per¬ 
turbation’’  may  be  a  purely  internal  accomplishment. 
These  beginnings  had  their  own  justification. 

But  they  were  justified  also  in  another  way.  The 
aesthetic  standard  has  a  hospitable  nature  and  protects 
the  early  stages  of  many  another  budding  ideal.  To 
exclude  the  jarring  and  unfit  is  to  give  every  voice  of 
inner  protest,  from  whatever  source,  a  chance  to  be 
heard. 

And  after  all,  it  is  not  a  matter  of  surprise  that 
the  first  etforts  in  law  should  have  been  innocent  of 
the  argument  from  effect  to  cause  as  we  understand 
it :  legislation  based  on  social  utility  is  not  yet  a  fully 
accepted  practice.  The  surprise  is  rather  that, 
referring  itself  to  independent  principles,  this  ancient 
law  should  so  frequently  have  hit  upon  the  useful. 
Without  declining  to  recognize  in  men  only  a  few 
centuries  earlier  than  ourselves  a  kindred  common 
sense,  it  seems  fair  to  judge  with  most  recent  students 
of  the  history  of  law  that  the  rules  regarding  purity 
and  purifications,  in  the  midst  of  much  that  is  over¬ 
drawn,  have  unwittingly  anticipated  important  prin¬ 
ciples  of  general  sanitation.  Esthetic  regard  for 
‘decency’  has  always  been  an  important  factor  in 
racial  health  and  soundness.  (But  let  me  say  in 
passing  that  it  seems  to  me  an  open  question  whether 


308  AKT  AND  KELIGION 

the  sBsthetic  standard  in  the  conduct  of  sex-behavior 
does  not  to  this  day  contain  more  truth  and  meaning 
than  the  hygienic  and  eugenic  utilities  so  commonly 
regarded  as  ultimate  tests; — to  my  mind  these  tests 
fall  into  the  logical  position  of  ‘negative  pragmatisnl^) 
The  significant  tabus  which  center  about  the  feeling 
that  blood  is  a  substance  of  mysterious  potency  have 
probably  an  aesthetic  basis;  but  they  have  had  an 
immense  utility,  as  in  fixing  social  attitudes  toward 
murder  and  suicide,  in  the  treatment  of  blood-kinship, 
in  the  care  of  women,  and  in  the  treatment  of  disease. 
A  great  deal  of  disutility  has  accompanied  this  utility 
and  in  time  outweighed  it.  But  this  fact  does  not 
cancel  the  primary  fact  that  the  aesthetic  judgment 
tends  to  find  the  useful  long  before  the  power  of  causal 
reasoning  is  sufficiently  developed  to  find  it.  It  must 
be  remembered,  too,  that  these  utilities  were-  not 
superficial,  but  the  radical  utilities  of  human  life.  If 
the  struggle  for  existence  has  eliminated  the  groups 
which  lacked  this  happy  correspondence  of  intuition 
with  vital  expediency,  the  fact  remains  that  in  those 
that  survived  the  intuition  itself  has  operated  as  an 
independent  organ  of  judgment. 

Even  when  the  causal  connection  is  invoked  in  the 
sacred  law,  it  is  frequently  a  postulate  of  the  fitness 
of  things  rather  than  a  result  of  empirical  observa¬ 
tion.  Certain  types  of  behavior  ought  to  have  certain 
results;  and  such  results  are  forthwith  ascribed  to 
them.  Thus,  upper  castes  may  marry  only  upper 
castes;  otherwise,  “the  degradation  of  the  family 
certainly  ensues,  and  after  death,  the  loss  of, heaven.’^ 


THE  SACRED  LAW 


309 


Buying  a  wife  is  an  undesirable  way  of  acquiring  one, 
because  ^‘sbe  who  has  been  bought  by  her  husband 
afterward  unites  herself  with  strangers/’  And,  as 
in  the  rules  already  quoted,  if  one  dines  with  one’s 
wife,  ‘‘his  children  will  be  destitute  of  manly  vigor.” 
Causality  of  this  sort  implies  crediting  the  objective 
world  with  a  structure  akin  to  one’s  own  principles 
of  preference.  The  idea  of  Jcarma  is  the  most  complete 
expression  of  this  trait:  for  karma  means  that  the 
world  is  at  bottom  a  moral  order  in  which  whatever 
ought  to  result  does  result.  Here  the  assthetic 
apriorism  gives  way  to  an  ethical  apriorism. 

IV 

In  the  demands  or  supposed  demands  of  fitness  it 
is  never  easy  to  detect  the  point  at  which  the  aesthetic 
disappears  in  the  ethical.  The  many  rules  which  dis¬ 
tinguish  lawful  from  unlawful  occupations,  or  clean 
from  unclean  foods,  may  have  little  behind  them  apart 
from  the  whims  of  feeling  except  historical  attitudes 
associated  with  the  several  materials  dealt  with.  If 
the  Brahmana  trades  he  must  not  sell  stones,  salt, 
hempen  cloth,  etc.,  through  a  long  list;  nor  must  he 
lend  “like  a  usurer.”  But  to  this  last  named  rule 
there  is  an  exception  which  introduces  a  new  element. 
The  Brahmana  must  not  lend  “unless  he  to  whom  he 
lends  is  exceedingly  wicked,  neglecting  his  sacred 
duties.”  There  is  some  justification,  it  appears,  for 
dealing  foully  with  the  foul  if  one  deals  with  them  at 
all.  The  principle  of  balance  here  is  no  longer  pri- 


310 


AET  AND  KELIGION 


marily  aesthetic,  the  elements  of  the  picture  are  the 
wills  of  free  men  in  noetic  interplay,  and  appeal  is 
made  to  a  sentiment  of  a  priori  justice.  Upon  such  a 
sentiment  of  ethical  balance  early  equity  was  built. 

The  symmetry  of  the  lex  talionis  rides  rough-shod 
over  the  psychological  differences  of  actions  outwardly 
similar.  It  ignores  intentions  and  circumstances.  Its 
simplicity  is  thus  specious ;  and  with  all  ^natural  right’ 
it  must  fall  under  the  suspicion  of  historically  minded 
thinkers  like  Sir  Henry  Maine.  But  the  psychological 
observer  sometimes  forgets  that  the  main  facts  in  the 
psychology  of  any  situation  are  the  facts  which  to  the 
minds  concerned  seem  objective.  We  dare  not  forget 
that  the  force  of  a  law  is  in  the  mind  that  interprets 
it,  not  in  the  actual  circumstances  or  motives  which 
breed  the  occasion.  Ideally  speaking,  the  only  real 
situation  is  the  situation  as  felt  and  understood  by 
those  that  take  part  in  it;  and  simple  minds  will  con¬ 
ceive  their  own  deeds  and  interests  simply.  The 
symmetry  of  early  law  is  the  very  quality  which,  by 
its  obvious  give  and  take,  is  fittest  to  serve  as  a  lan¬ 
guage.  The  punishment  which  has  the  saving  grace 
of  fitting  the  crime  as  the  perpetrator  conceives  it  is 
the  only  punishment  which  has  any  chance  of  seeming 
right  to  him.  He  can  be  reconciled  if  at  all  only  by  a 
reaction  which  he  can  read  at  once  as  meaningful. 
The  sacred  law  may  well  have  had  in  this  respect  a 
literal  ^saving  grace’  such  as  more  carefully  studied 
measures  might  wholly  miss. 

This  primitive  equity  of  balance  is  not  incapable  of 
progress.  Any  growth  in  understanding  the  nature 


THE  SACKED  LAW  311 

of  the  act  to  be  balanced  will  be  echoed  in  the  treah 
ment;  hence  primitive  equity,  so  far  from  being  fixed, 
is  highly  variable.  According  to  the  Jewish  law,  if 
a  son  were  to  strike  his  father,  he  must  be  put  to 
death  (Exodus  21.  15) ;  the  code  of  Hammurabi  pre¬ 
scribes  that  he  must  lose  his  hand.  Fitness  may  be 
claimed  for  each  rule;  the  deciding  factor  is  to  be 
found  in  the  conception  of  the  offence,  and  this  con¬ 
ception  is  capable  of  indefinite  refinement. 

And  I  doubt  whether  any  degree  of  progress  will 
do  more  than  perfect  this  refinement.  The  principle 
of  equity  we  shall  not  outgrow.  Deficient  as  the  sacred 
law  is  in  legal  insight,  it  was  not  astray  in  its  first 
principles.  Indeed  its  special  and  only  proper  function 
was  the  finding  of  first  principles ;  and  it  may  be  well 
to  attempt  a  summary  of  what  is  permanently  valid  in 
its  work. 

The  sources  of  value  are  to  he  preferred  above  all 
specific  values  that  flow  from  them.  This  is  not  a 
maxim  of  prudence,  dictating  a  wise  regard  as  for  the 
goose  that  lays  the  golden  eggs.  It  is  rather  a  prin¬ 
ciple  of  value-experience.  It  shows  itself  not  only  in 
the  recurrent  demands  for  the  honoring  of  the  gods, 
the  ancestors,  the  father  and  mother,  but  also  in  the 
claims  for  reverence  toward  the  sacred  law  itself,  and 
its  trustees.  It  is  sometimes  thought  that  the  law  of 
sacrilege,  containing  much  interested  legislation  and 
offering  the  best  foothold  for  priestly  corruption,  is 
pre-eminently  the  outgrown  element  in  ancient  law. 
But  this  will  not  be  the  case  until  the  sentiment  of 
national  honor,  an  object  of  vague,  frequently  fanati- 


312 


AKT  AND  KELIGION 


cal,  but  essentially  religious  devotion,  and  the  idea  of 
regard  for  parents  as  a  fundamental  duty  are  out¬ 
grown.  Eespect  for  law  is  still  deeper  in  the  human 
consciousness  than  interest  in  any  particular  law. 
And  no  advantage  could  compensate  any  community 
for  the  vanishing  of  the  spirit  of  reverence  out  of 
which  all  justice  and  all  culture  must  come.  This 
principle  of  the  ancient  law  is  still  valid. 

Personality  is  to  he  set  above  property.  This  might 
be  regarded  as  a  corollary  of  the  above  principle,  if 
we  assume  that  the  value  of  property  depends  in  any 
respect  upon  personality.  That  this  is  the  case  is 
broadly  hinted  in  various  passages  of  sacred  law,  thus : 
^‘Whatever  exists  in  the  world  is  the  property  of  the 
Brahmana;  on  account  of  the  excellence  of  his  origin 
the  Brahmana  is,  indeed,  entitled  to  it  all.’^  (Mann, 
I,  100.)  But  apart  from  the  somewhat  over-simple 
theory  of  distributive  justice  here  promulgated,  the 
meaning  of  the  principle  is  seen  especially  in  three 
ways :  the  regard  for  the  dignity  of  the  person  as  worth 
every  necessary  sacrifice  of  utility;  the  indisposition 
to  accept  a  compounding  for  personal  injury  by  fines 
alone,  so  long  as  the  law  remained  sacred  law ;  and  the 
attempt,  in  the  clash  of  personal  interests,  to  ignore 
property  ditferences  as  irrelevant.  When  a  sufficient 
number  of  differences  among  men  have  been  set  aside 
as  irrelevant  to  the  concerns  of  justice,  the  principle 
here  stated  will  blossom  out  in  the  form  of  a  theory 
of  equality  before  the  law, — in  which  form,  the  ancient 
principle  vigorously  survives.  And  we  have  had 
recent  occasion  to  reaffirm  the  judgment  that  crimes 


THE  SACRED  LAW  313 

against  property  are  not  to  be  weighed  off  with  crimes 
against  persons  and  against  humanity. 

In  such  ways  as  these  the  sacred  law  makes  good 
its  claim  that  there  is  a  rule  of  life  which  gives  laws 
to,  utility.  It  is  always  true,  human  nature  being  what 
it  is,  that  nothing  can  be  useful  which  fails  to  satisfy 
equity,  personality,  honor.  So  long  as  Russian  peas¬ 
ants  believe  as  they  have  believed  about  methods  of 
agriculture,  it  is  not  a  useful  procedure  to  introduce 
mechanical  reapers  and  binders  among  them:  dissi¬ 
pate  these  beliefs  and  a  new  market  is  open  to  the 
world ;  but  in  no  case  is  utility  freed  to  stand  as  some¬ 
thing  independent  of  the  preferences  and  faiths  of 
human  nature,  w^hether  true  or  false.  And  so  long  as 
we  hold  the  belief  that  a  man  is  worth  more  than  his 
property,  it  will  be  impossible  not  alone  to  compensate 
murder  with  a  money-payment,  but  to  hold  slaves,  or 
to  equate  man-power  with  horse-power,  however 
advantageous  the  procedure  from  the  purely  economic 
standpoint. 

Hence  it  is  not  true  as  Maine  asserts  that  the  in¬ 
fluence  of  theocratic  legislation  disappears  with  the 
advent  of  kings.  But  it  is  true  that  with  the  advent 
of  kings  another  type  of  judgment  must  enter  as 
co-operative  with  this  one. 

V 

The  abuses  and  crudities  of  the  sacred  law  are  so 
much  in  evidence  that  they  almost  usurp  the  attention 
of  observers ;  and  it  is  necessary  here  to  advert  to  them 


314 


AKT  AND  KELIGION 


only  for  the  sake  of  dne  proportion.  Those  who 
regard  the  connection  of  religion  with  morals  as  on 
the  whole  unfortunate  for  morals — and  there  are  many 
such — have  in  mind  the  insistence  on  a  blind  obedience, 
the  diversion  of  thought  from  the  experiential  and 
social  basis  of  righteousness,  and  the  tendency  to  con¬ 
done  the  humanly  pernicious  if  the  religiously  correct 
is  preserved.  These  are  grave  evils. 

The  nature  of  them  might  be  comprehended,  per¬ 
haps,  in  the  statement  that  religion  is  prone  to  exag¬ 
gerate  its  primacy  into  a  separation.  It  finds  a  true 
absolute,  but  is  apt  to  set  it  up  as  exclusive  of  the 
relative  and  pragmatic  instead  of  including  and 
co-operating  with  them.  In  artificial  restrictions  upon 
human  intercourse,  in  the  cultivation  of  mistrust  and 
aversion  toward  the  unbeliever,  in  depriving  heretics 
of  privileges  and  even  of  fair  play,  in  inculcating  an 
artificial  terror  of  the  beyond  so  great  as  to  obscure 
every  useful  motive  and  so  to  retain  intact  the  most 
preposterous  customs,  in  hostility  to  novelty,  the 
custodians  of  the  sacred  law  have  done  incalculable 
harm  both  to  mankind  and  to  religion  itself.  In  face 
of  all  this,  it  may  be  said  that  if  mankind  could  have 
won  its  hold  upon  a  region  of  absolute  satisfaction 
only  at  this  cost,  it  was  worth  the  sacrifice.^ 

But  human  nature  outgrows  the  need  of  any  such 
sacrifice.  Indeed  these  abuses  are  incidents  of  a 
middle  stage  in  the  development  of  law,  the  struggle 

3  I  may  remind  the  reader  of  the  remark  of  Walter  Bagehot ’s  that  at 
a  critical  point  in  the  development  of  human  societies  it  was  more  im¬ 
portant  that  there  should  be  law,  than  that  there  should  be  good  law. 
It  was  the  religious  temper  that  made  law  possible. 


THE  SACKED  LAW 


315 


of  the  secular  principle  to  secure  recognition.  The 
original  tendency  of  the  sacred  law  is  not  to  reject 
the  aid  of  secular  principles  but  to  make  place  for 
them.  The  jus  of  the  Eoman  comitia  was  regarded 
as  under  divine  auspices,  and  a  natural  supplement  to 
the  sacred  fas.  Likewise  under  the  wing  of  theocratic 
law  there  grew  up  in  many  regions  a  body  of  worldly 
wisdom  based  on  experience  and  taking  the  form  of 
proverb  or  fable,  the  first  humanizations  of  ethics,  so 
little  conscious  of  antagonism  of  principle  that  the 
sayings  of  Solomon  could  find  their  way  into  the  sacred 
canon.  The  antagonism  existed  however,  and  was 
bound  to  appear  because  the  a  priori  vision  of  the 
human  mind  cannot  safely  proceed  much  farther  than 
first  principles;  the  detail  of  the  law,  like  the  detail 
of  the  body  of  science,  has  to  be  built  by  the  aid 
of  pragmatic  considerations.  The  rubbish  of  over¬ 
wrought  aestheticism  had  to  give  way  to  the  pressing 
utilities.  Eeligion  had  to  learn  the  lesson  of  content¬ 
ing  itself  with  the  right  of  giving  to  all  second  prin¬ 
ciples  their  final  meaning.  We  shall  have  recovered 
the  original  and  normal  relation  between  the  secular 
and  the  sacred  when  we  can  treat  murder,  adultery, 
perjury,  breach  of  contract,  etc.,  on  the  ground  of 
social  expediency  without  feeling  the  need  to  deny 
that  they  are  also  ^^abominations  to  the  and  ^‘to 
the  Lord.^’ 

Meantime  religion  and  art,  relieved  of  social  burdens 
to  which  they  were  only  partly  fitted,  were  free  to 
assert  to  the  full  their  specific  natures.  To  these  we 
now  turn. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 


ART  AND  HUMAN  NATURE 

UNSATISFIED  wishes  press  in  all  directions,  and 
seize  on  every  promising  object.  They  find  the 
staff  of  dreams  and  day-dreams  most  accessible  and 
yielding :  the  imagination  is  the  infinite  space  in  which 
endless  flimsy  exploits  occur  at  will,  pictures  and 
promises  of  the  unrealized  satisfaction. 

But  apart  from  their  lack  of  substantiality,  these 
easy  private  conquests  have  the  disadvantage  which 
always  attends  non-resistance.  They  fail  to  mark  the 
distinction  between  a  passing  fancy  and  a  profound 
need.  They  fail  to  leave  the  marks  of  a  genuine 
experience;  they  arouse  inadequate  after-images,  and 
so  give  little  aid  in  learning  what  our  real  as  opposed 
to  our  apparent  wishes  are.  Hence  in  the  world  of 
dreams,  taken  by  itself,  primitive  expressions  of 
instinct  flourish,  interpreting  power  flags,  and  the 
unsatisfied  will  necessarily  remains  unsatisfied.  For 
where  every  desire  is  appeased  as  it  arises,  or  where 
every  impulse  assumes  full  sway,  at  least  one  large 
human  need  must  be  permanently  repressed,  the  need 
for  self-knowledge.  In  dreams,  individual  personality 
is  at  a  minimum.  The  will  to  power  requires  a  stiffer 
medium  for  even  so  much  as  a  picture  of  its  residual 
need. 


AKT  AND  HUMAN  NATUKE 


317 


Such  a  medium  it  can  only  find  in  that  same  physical 
world  which,  by  hypothesis,  is  refusing  literal  satis¬ 
faction.  If  the  will  cannot  enjoy,  it  can  still  depict 
enjoyment:  and  the  effort  to  depict  gives  substance 
and  consistency  to  the  dream.  And  as  in  remembering 
an  experience,  one  contemplates  one’s  self  engaged 
in  the  experience,  so  in  depicting  enjoyment  one  de¬ 
picts  one’s  self  enjoying.  The  war  dance  which 
dramatizes  the  victory  not  yet  won  is  not  a  mere 
representation  of  fighting  and  winning:  it  is  a  self- 
portrait  of  man  as  victor.  It  is  a  real  experience,  and 
may  be  the  basis  for  progress  in  interpreting  the 
will.  Such  physically  embodied  dreams  are  ^  works  of 
art.’  The  work  of  art  is  the  dream  made  objective, 
permanent,  self-conscious,  mutual.^ 

The  work  of  art  is  mutual  or  social  partly  because 
as  a  physical  object  it  cannot  help  being  public,  open 
to  common  judgment.  But  it  is  social  also  because  it 
intends  to  exert  a  power  of  its  own.  It  may  or  may 
not  be  the  conscious  intention  of  the  artist  to  announce 
any  new  gospel  regarding  the  human  will,  though  he  is 
quite  as  likely  to  he  the  rebel  or  the  prophet  as  to  he 
the  spokesman  of  any  established  social  order.  His 
art  is  ‘beyond  society’  inasmuch  as  its  source  is  in  his 

1  TLe  Freudian  view  of  art  is  composed  of  an  axiom  and  an  untruth. 
The  axiom  is  that  repressed  wishes  express  themselves  in  art  forms.  For 
if  man  makes  anything  at  all,  how  should  he  make  except  in  such  wise 
as  to  satisfy  himself?  The  work  of  his  hand  will  necessarily  reveal  any 
craving  analyzed  or  not  which  is  given  liberty  to  assert  itself  in  that 
work.  The  untruth  is  in  the  answer  to  the  question,  What  wish  is 
expressed  in  art  forms?  The  Freudian  answer  is  perverse  in  its  empha¬ 
sis.  The  true  answer  is.  Not  any  one  wish,  but  the  total  wish  of  man, — 
the  will. 


318 


ART  AND  RELIGION 


private  dream  of  precisely  that  good  which  society 
so  far  fails  to  supply.^  But  he  intends  none  the  less 
through  his  art  to  speak  across  to  the  similarly  unsat¬ 
isfied  wishes  of  his  kind.  In  displaying  his  work,  it 
is  as  if  he  said,  ^  ^  This  is  my  wish, — Is  it  yours  also  ? — 
Has  it  man  in  it  I  ’  ’ 

The  satisfaction  offered  by  art  is  symbolic,  not 
actual;  hence  the  power  of  art  to  satisfy  is  limited 
by  the  scope  of  symbol.  Yet  the  region  which  art  opens 
to  the  will  is  not  one  of  pure  fancy  or  illusion.  As 
the  unrealized  wish  is  a  wish  for  something  veritable, 
the  art  which  appeases  it  is  bound  to  convince,  not  to 
mock.  It  conveys  to  the  mind  some  account  of  reality ; 
it  is  never  the  mere  projection  of  the  subjective 
longing.  The  tie  between  art  and  reality  is  seen  in 
the  path  which  leads  from  imitation  to  certain  forms 
of  art.  Imitation  is  not  art,  but  the  imitation  of 
selected  parts  of  reality  may  be  the  beginning  of  art, 
as  narration  at  first  accurate  may,  by  a  well-kno^vn 
process,  insensibly  grow  into  fiction  under  the  pressure 
of  the  idea  of  the  happening,  as  one  would  have  had 
it  transpire.  To  find  its  subjects  in  a  world  of  common 
experience  is  a  necessity  for  an  undertaking  which, 
like  art,  proposes  to  be  commonly  understood;  but  it 
chooses  from  the  world  of  actuality  such  parts  as 

2  For  this  reason  I  must  dissent  in  principle  from  one  of  the  most 
living  and  fundamental  of  contemporary  views  of  the  function  of  art, 
that  of  Mr.  Ralph  Adams  Cram.  The  era  of  individualism  in  art  which 
he  deplores  is  not  a  pure  retrogression,  it  is  a  necessary  ‘awkward 
period^  on  the  way  to  better  things.  Art  must  be  democratic  and  win 
its  own  clientele  of  free  admirers;  it  must  never  again  be  the  mere  out¬ 
growth  of  an  authoritatively  united  community  spirit.  It  must  serve 
as  one  of  the  main  paths  to  the  future  and  the  unborn. 


AKT  AND  HUMAN  NATUEE  319 

foreshadow  a  happy  solution  of  some  problem  of  evil 
or  of  resistance  to  will.  It  picks  out  objects  or  situa¬ 
tions  in  which  we  can  see  or  surmise  the  raison  d^etre 
of  ordinary  and  challenging  facts, — of  inertia,  in  the 
repose  of  a  majestic  peak;  of  flesh,  in  the  face  of  a 
girl;  of  human  bonds,  in  the  Madonna;  of  suffering 
itself,  in  tragedy  and  music.  Bergson  was  essentially 
right  in  saying  that  the  artist  like  the  metaphysician 
must,  through  the  disinterested  vision  of  sympathy, 
perceive  the  real.  The  objects  which  art  portrays  are 
individual  objects  with  a  penumbra  of  universal 
meaning;  they  are  objects  which  admit  us  to  a  per¬ 
ception  of  the  way  in  which  reality,  while  resisting  our 
wishes,  may  yet  satisfy  the  will. 

The  original  intention  of  art  may  well  be,  not  to 
satisfy  the  will,  but  to  prefigure  its  satisfaction.  As 
in  mimetic  dances,  which  are  at  the  same  time  prayers, 
art  may  serve  as  a  sort  of  first  aid  to  thought,  giving 
a  more  vivid  grasp  of  the  goal  of  desire.  Such  art  is 
frequently  a  collective  activity;  collectivity  heightens 
emotion ;  and  heightened  emotion  intensifies  the  imagi¬ 
native  presentation  of  the  objects  wished  for. 

But  the  characteristic  thing  about  art  is  that  in  this 
process  of  imaginative  presentation,  it  discovers  a 
secondary  satisfaction  which  eclipses  the  first.  The 
one  who  contemplates  and  enjoys  a  work  of  art  may 
equally  with  the  artist  find  his  insight  aided;  but  the 
artist  has  found  the  joy  of  authorship  in  an  object 
which  partakes  of  his  own  ideal.  There  are  many 
objects  which  can  hardly  be  enjoyed  except  by  physical 


320 


AKT  AND  EELIGION 


possession :  to  the  hungry  man,  a  picture  of  food  would 
bring  little  pleasure  whether  painted  by  himself  or 
some  other.  But  art,  whose  mission  is  to  the  unsat¬ 
isfied  wishes,  may  safely  assume  that  it  has  to  do  with 
the  hungry  man  only  in  so  far  as  he  is  also  a  hungry 
soul.  The  objects  which  it  has  to  present  are  objects 
whose  nature  is  to  elude  physical  possession.  The 
most  general  name  for  the  specific  objects  of  art  is 
/  the  beautiful;  and  the  beautiful  may  he  defined  as  that 
which  demands  to  be  possessed  by  reproduction. 

It  has  often  been  said  that  the  contemplation  of 
beauty  is  quieting  to  the  will;  that  it  must  be  disin¬ 
terested,  free  from  the  clamor  for  personal  enjoyment. 
And  this  is  true  with  regard  to  every  activity  within 
the  private  or  the  public  order:  for  beauty  is  the 
presence  in  a  particular  object  of  a  value  which  cannot 
be  possessed  by  any  social  instinct.  But  the  cessation 
of  these  activities  is  the  initiation  of  another.  The 
perceiver  of  beauty,  quite  unreflectively,  begins  the 
etfort  to  produce  it  out  of  himself,  as  one  who  has 
heard  music  he  enjoys  may  find  himself  trying*  to 
whistle  it.  Nothing  can  be  consciously  reproduced 
unless  it  has  been  thought  through;  and  as  the  pos¬ 
session  of  beauty  must  be  a  possession  by  conscious 
thought,  the  work  of  reproduction  may  be  regarded  as 
the  act  of  taking  complete  possession.  Art  could  thus 
^  be  described  as  the  completion  of  the  possession  of  the 
beautiful. 

And  so  far  as  the  element  of  value  in  beauty  is  a 
metaphysical  element,  a  solution  in  idea  of  some 
problem  of  evil,  it  is  in  actuality,  and  not  in  symbol 


AKT  AND  HUMAN  NATURE 


321 


only,  a  finished  satisfaction.  The  will  reaches  in  art 
an  absolute  goal.  Hence  it  is  that  art  opens  to  some 
minds  a  career  whose  passion  is  capable  of  replacing 
all  other  passions.  The  artist  has  all  that  the  meta¬ 
physician  can  give  him,  though  he  has  it  not  in  con¬ 
ceptual  form.  He  has  all  that  ambition  and  love  can 
give  him,  though  he  has  it  not  in  the  coin  of  actual 
recognition  and  affection.  As  a  man  he  will  need  to 
possess  his  object  also  through  the  way  of  concepts 
and  words,  and  of  recognition  and  personal  attach¬ 
ment  ;  but  as  an  artist  he  has  already  stood  at  the  end 
of  these  paths:  he  has  anticipated  the  attainment  of 
his  will.  And  whether  or  not  he  is  ‘  indifferent  to  the 
public^ — his  immediate  public — he  is  conscious  in  his 
achievement  of  the  necessary  and  permanent  per¬ 
suasive  power  of  a  vital  idea. 

II 

If  this  is  a  true  account  of  the  nature  of  art,  we  can 
understand  its  twofold  etfect  upon  human  instinct. 
Since,  in  its  first  intention,  it  presents  the  objects  of 
desire  with  added  vividness,  it  strengthens  the  im¬ 
pulses  to  possess,  is  capable  of  heightening  the  pas¬ 
sions,  social  and  unsocial.  Upon  the  spectator,  the 
first  effect  of  the  enjoyment  of  art  is  the  enlivening  of 
his  wishes,  restoring  a  perhaps  jaded  faith  in  their 
achievableness  and  in  the  general  worth  of  living. 
And  since  he  has  been  led  into  a  world  in  which  success 
is  not  alone  possible  but  actual,  immersion  in  that 
world  as  a  spectator  might  easily  tend  simply  to 


322 


AET  AND  KELIGION 


heighten  the  rate  of  living,  to  increase  eagerness  and 
demand,  while  lowering  patience  with  the  restraint  and 
postponement  imposed  by  the  slow  processes  of  the 
social  order.  It  is  not  an  accident  that  communities 
of  artists  and  art-lovers  tend  to  develop  occasional 
antinomian  or  Bohemian  traits. 

But  while  every  artist  is  a  spectator,  every  spectator 
is  also  at  least  an  incipient  artist;  and  to  that  extent 
the  first  effect  of  art  is  superseded  hy  the  second, — 
the  heightened  energies  of  action  are  transmuted  into 
energies  of  creativity.  The  full  and  normal  effect  of 
art  is  to  turn  all  impulses  into  the  channel  of  the 
creation  of  persuasive  beauty,  making  this  form  of  the 
will  to  power  their  ultimate  meaning. 

In  this  role  of  interpreting  instinct,  the  passion  for 
art  is  likely  to  find  itself  in  partial  opposition  to  the 
passion  of  the  public  order.  Concern  for  the  quality 
and  beauty  of  an  industrial  product  is  not  always  com¬ 
patible  with  concern  for  maximum  quantity  or  ex¬ 
change  value:  one  finds  in  France  today  a  dread  of 
the  transformation  of  national  life  which  may  be 
imposed  by  a  new-born  pressure  for  ^efficiency’  as  a 
result  of  the  war.  With  the  passion  of  the  private 
order  there  is  no  such  opposition.  Sex-love  in  particu¬ 
lar  parallels  and  in  part  fuses  with  the  impulse  of  art- 
production;  for  sex-love  includes  within  its  meaning 
an  impulse  to  take  possession  of  the  beautiful  by 
reproducing  it,  though  this  meaning  does  not  rise  to 
the  same  level  of  consciousness  as  in  art.  And  art 
may  be  regarded  as  a  mode  of  creativity,  in  which  the 
will  to  power  not  alone  controls  its  object,  but 


AKT  AND  HUMAN  NATUKE 


323 


fashions  its  very  substance  and  form.  Hence  no  form 
of  activity  so  completely  and  directly  sublimates  the 
awakening  instinct  of  sex  as  activity  in  creative 
imagination.  Art  is  particularly  fitted  to  introduce 
the  instinct  of  sex  to  the  central  element  of  its  own 
meaning.^ 

Ill 

But  beside  the  direct  effect  of  art  on  instinct  by 
interpreting  it,  there  is  another  and  reflexive  effect 
upon  the  form  of  all  instinct-expression. 

The  artist  does  not  intentionally  generalize  the 
beauty  which  he  finds  in  a  particular  object  and  depos¬ 
its  in  another.  But  the  meaning  of  beauty  is  universal, 
and  cannot  be  confined  within  any  one  object,  nor 
within  any  one  medium.  Beauty  transfers  itself,  within 
the  mind,  from  one  medium  to  another ;  its  tendency  is 
to  impose  its  principle  upon  every  output  of  the  person. 
It  may  not  be  true  that  every  painter  some  time  writes 
a  poem.  But  behavior,  the  continuous  product  of  the 
will,  cannot  escape  the  impress  of  the  spread  of  the 
impulses  of  art.  Through  art  the  force  of  analogy  in 
the  mind  is  immensely  increased.  It  has  become  a 
prevalent  doctrine  in  educational  theory  that  skill 
acquired  in  one  department  of  knowledge  is  not  trans- 

3  Miss  Jane  Harrison  relates  that  ‘‘an  artist  deeply  in  love  with  his 
friend’s  wife  once  said,  ‘If  only  I  could  paint  her  and  get  what  I  want 
from  her,  I  could  bear  it.  ’  .  .  .  He  saw  that  through  art,  through  vision, 
through  detachment,  desire  might  be  slain,  and  the  man  within  him  find 
peace.”  Should  we  not  rather  say  that  desire  might  thus  find  its  own 
meaning,  not  so  much  through  detachment  as  through  creative  possession, 
and  the  entire  will  of  him  find  what  it  wanted?  Art  and  Kitual,  p.  218. 


324 


AKT  AND  KELIGION 


ferable  to  another;  and  this  is  likely  to  be  true  if  we 
deprive  the  mind  of  all  aesthetic  interest  in  the  activity 
in  question.  But  interest  in  beauty  reaches  the  central 
current  of  the  will,  and  when  this  interest  is  awakened 
all  transference  of  skill  and  discipline  becomes  natural. 
It  is  the  nature  of  beauty  to  overflow  departments  and 
to  make  the  man  of  one  piece. 

Hence  it  is  that  the  most  common  impressions  of 
physical  form  are  translated  (so  naturally  that  we 
seldom  think  of  the  metaphor)  into  expressions  of 
character  types, — straight,  crooked,  upright,  sharp, 
square,  devious,  etc.  The  words  rude  and  refined, 
taken  over  from  artisanry,  summarize  the  series  of 
these  indirect  effects  of  art  on  the  expression  of 
instinct.  It  would  be  possible  to  particularize  these 
effects  for  each  of  the  instincts  and  passions;  but  a 
few  sketchy  outlines  must  suffice. 

1.  Since  art  trains  enthusiasm  to  the  performance 
of  definite  work,  it  illustrates  the  paradox  of  force 
acquired  through  restraint,  to  the  direct  advantage  of 
all  social  life.  The  subordination  of  dancers  to  the 
common  rhythm  and  music  is  a  condition  of  their  free 
self-expression;  and  public  life  if  it  presents  a  more 
complex  subordination  may  yet  benefit  by  the  analogy. 
The  will  to  power  is  easily  led,  in  simple  community 
life,  by  the  subtle  argument  of  ^harmony’  into  the 
assumption  of  a  permanent  identity  of  interest  between 
the  individual  person  and  the  State.  This  assumption, 
as  was  natural  in  a  people  so  deeply  steeped  in  beauty, 
was  the  genius  of  Greek  social  life.  Increasing  con¬ 
sciousness  of  individual  self-interest  must  always 


AET  AND  HUMAN  NATURE 


325 


come  into  sncli  a  scheme  as  a  disturbing  element;  and 
once  the  central  harmony  is  broken,  no  good  will  of 
separate  individuals  could  restore  the  identity  of 
interest.  The  principle  is  not  a  sufficient  bond  for 
political  life,  as  the  tragedy  of  Greece  may  shoAV,  but 
the  appeal  to  a  common  consciousness  of  beauty  is  an 
aid  which  our  bald  democracies  cannot  afford  to  ignore. 
Public  architecture,  public  pageantry  and  masque, 
the  reverence  for  beauty  in  all  public  enterprises, 
furnish  an  indirect  argument  for  public  solidarity  of 
incalculable  scope. 

2.  In  private  relations,  the  interest  in  beauty  has 
something  more  than  decency  to  demand.  It  tends  of 
its  own  accord  to  invite  an  equality  between  the  part¬ 
ners,  since  harmony  is  disturbed  by  the  weakness  or 
suppression  of  one  of  the  voices.  Society  in  the 
narrower  sense  of  the  term  may  be  regarded  as  human 
intercourse  carried  on  under  the  dominance  of  the 
demand  for  beauty,  as  the  most  complex  of  the 
improvisatory  arts.  And  all  society  creates  for  its 
own  purposes  a  limited  world  from  which  extremes 
of  inequality  are  excluded.  But  the  standard  of 
beauty  demands  no  permanence  in  any  human  relation¬ 
ship.  Art  embodies  its  meaning  within  finite  and 
framable  objects;  and  it  has  no  other  disposition  for 
the  history  of  love.  The  tale  will  find  its  end:  its 
passing  may  have  its  own  melancholy  beauty.  Taken 
by  itself  the  standard  of  art  would  make  for  temporary 
unions. 

It  is  not  reasonable  to  expect  from  this  indirect  and 
formal  bearing  of  art  on  instinct  a  sufficient  guidance 


326  AKT  AND  KELIGION 

of  life.  Taken  alone  it  would  subordinate  the  matter 
of  behavior  to  its  manner,  preferring  to  believe  that 
‘‘All  vertns  be  closyde  in  curtasy.’’  It  would  insist 
on  suavity  when  the  situation  might  well  demand 
indignation  or  even  conflict.  It  has  no  place  for  the 
prophet,  the  revolutionist,  the  reformer;  and  it  has 
but  feeble  contact  with  the  more  pressing  problems 
of  the  ‘common  man.’  It  fits  no  one  for  dealing  with 
the  as  yet  unharmonizable  aspects  of  experience.^  Its 
tendency  would  be  to  seclude  itself,  build  for  itself 
high  garden  walls,  and  in  the  midst  of  a  world  small 
enough  to  be  perfectly  controlled,  forget  the  ugly,  the 
squalid,  the  disordered,  the  just  causes  for  warfare 
and  rebellion. 

If  made  an  exclusive  object  of  devotion,  beauty 
would  fail  at  length  to  satisfy  the  capacity  for  mal- 
adaptation.  When  it  so  far  assumes  leadership  in 
the  mind  as  to  dominate  the  religious  consciousness, 
it  loses  its  power.  The  gods  themselves  become 
plastic  figures  and  lend  themselves  to  the  fabrications 
of  myth  and  legend.  Their  severity  wanes  in  an 
Olympian  sunshine;  and  the  gibe  of  Epicurus  holds 
good,  that  these  gods  can  no  longer  be  supposed  to 
wrinkle  their  brows  in  concern  for  human  affairs. 
To  exclude  in  this  way  the  cruelty  and  hardness  of 
fact  from  the  view  of  an  aesthetized  consciousness  is 
but  to  invite  the  day  of  wrath,  when  reality  will  burst 

4  There  is  probably  nothing  to  be  done  in  the  world  which  cannot  be 
done  with  entire  decorousness,  ideally  speaking,  but  for  men  of  imperfect 
skill,  promptitude,  and  invention  it  is  sometimes  necessary  to  choose 
between  decorum  and  the  demand  of  an  occasion,  between  futility,  even 
dishonor,  and  rudeness. 


AET  AND  HUMAN  NATUEE  327 

down  those  walls  and  turn  the  unearned  paradise  to 
a  place  of  loathing. 

The  real  artist  knows  that  to  yield  to  the  aristocratic 
impulse  in  the  assthetic  consciousness  is  to  cut  off  the 
sources  of  his  own  art.  For  beauty,  let  me  repeat,  is 
reality  offering  a  glimpse  of  the  solution  of  its  own 
problems  of  evil :  its  soil  is  in  experience.  It  must  lean 
against  its  own  luxury,  its  sensitiveness  and  finesse. 
It  must  return  from  time  to  time  to  the  school  of 
asceticism  and  religion. 


CHAPTEE  XXXIX 


EELIGION  PER  SE 

AS  art  becomes  secular  and  declares  independence, 
and  as  law  becomes  civil  and  increasingly 
chary  of  the  remnants  of  priestly  jurisdiction,  religion 
is  left  with  the  sphere  of  the  supernatural  as  its 
special  province.  It  deals  with  what  is  behind,  beyond, 
beneath,  and  within  the  world;  standing  in  contrast 
with  all  that  is  apparent,  finite,  and  controllable  by 
systematic  thought. 

When  the  divine  element,  formerly  fused  with  science 
as  sacred  lore,  with  law  as  sacred  custom  and  precept, 
and  with  art  as  sacred  rite,  song,  and  story,  is  thus 
set  forth  in  its  separate  character,  it  seems  a  strangely 
empty  essence,  a  mystery,  a  mere  nothing, — for  which 
nevertheless,  the  most  extravagant  claims  are  made. 
When  an  attempt  is  made  to  describe  or  deal  with  it, 
it  is  necessary  to  fall  back  on  fragments  of  thought, 
command,  and  symbol,  and  yet  to  deny  that  these  con¬ 
tain  what  is  intrinsically  uncontainable  in  such  vessels. 
With  better  understanding  it  becomes  known  that 

i 

these  words  of  contrast,  ^‘behind,  beyond,’^  etc.,  indi¬ 
cate  the  relation  of  a  life  to  its  manifestations ;  as  the 
life  of  an  animal  might  be  said  to  be  behind  its 
behavior  the  invisible  and  elusive  source  of  its  mani¬ 
festations.  The  divine  is  empty  as  the  self  apart  from 


RELIGION  PER  SE 


329 


its  ^experience’  is  empty.  The  domain  of  religion  in 
fact  is  a  divine  self,  a  Spirit  which  is  as  Subject  to  all 
finite  things,  persons,  and  arts  as  Object,  and  presum¬ 
ably  to  much  else  that  these  categories  do  not  include. 
The  significance  of  religion  comes  from  the  assumption 
that  all  the  forces  of  the  world  are  drawn  together  in 
foci  which  we  call  personalities  or  spirits;  and  these 
ultimately  into  one.  It  would  be  possible  to  deal  with 
the  whole  of  force,  the  Supreme  Power,  as  religion 
proposes  to  deal  with  it  only  if  this  immense  reality 
had  its  simple  center,  its  I-am  and  I-will.  In  religion 
the  will  of  man  seeks  union  with  the  simple  center  of 
power  which  is  ‘beyond’  and  ‘within’  the  world  as  the 
will  of  the  world. 

The  extravagant  claim  of  religion  has  been  that 
union  with  God  is  itself  a  good,  and  indeed,  the 
supreme  and  sufficient  satisfaction  of  the  will.  But 
even  if  we  can  catch  some  hint  of  the  metaphysical 
mystery  of  the  religious  domain,  this  claim  is  a  new 
mystery.  It  is  not  obvious  that  union  with  anything 
is  a  supreme  good,  unless  union  means  an  alliance  with 
the  power  therein  vested.  But  religion  has  set  its 
good  in  opposition  to  all  other  goods;  it  has  turned 
its  back  upon  the  world  in  which  the  power  of  the  gods 
themselves  is  manifested.  It  has  renounced  the  world ; 
and  it  has  testified  to  the  literalness  of  its  intention 
by  the  most  thorough  asceticism.  In  its  separation 
from  art  and  from  society,  religion  appears  as  the 
hostile  critic  of  both,  competing  with  them  for  the 
centering  of  human  affections.  Despite  all  this,  some 
human  beings  have  found  in  religion,  as  others  have 


330 


AET  AND  EELIGION 


found  in  art,  a  career  animated  by  a  passion  able  to 
displace  all  others. 

It  is  of  course  impossible  for  any  one  to  live  in  the 
world  and  maintain  a  complete  enmity  toward  the 
goods  of  the  world,  the  natural  objects  of  his  instinctive 
wishes.  To  live,  hating  life,  even  if  for  duty^s  sake 
one  continued  to  eat,  would  be  a  slow  suicide.  There 
is  strictly  no  such  thing  as  ^thorough  asceticism.’ 
Externally,  the  position  of  the  religious  devotee  is 
anomalous :  he  renounces  society,  family,  the  State, 
yet  he  enjoys  the  wealth,  the  friendship,  the  peace, 
provided  by  others.  His  position  has  therefore  been 
called  parasitic  and  insincere.  On  Kantian  grounds 
he  is  immoral — so  it  might  appear — for  he  cannot 
universalize  his  own  maxim. 

So  it  appears;  but  the  appearance  is  mistaken.  It 
is  plausible  only  because  one  forgets  that  all  living 
things  have  to  renew  their  life  from  time  to  time  by 
turning  away  from  life,  as  one  turns  from  waking  to 
sleeping  for  the  sake  of  being  the  more  awake.  If  it 
is  true  that  art  and  all  social  activities  make  use  of  a 
kind  of  capital  whose  source  lies  outside  themselves, 
it  would  follow  that  one  who  had  no  other  interest  at 
heart  than  these  would  still  be  obliged  by  the  nature 
of  things  alternately  to  pursue  them  and  turn  awmy 
from  them.^  Not  alone  individuals,  but  all  art  and  all 
institutions  must  save  their  lives  by  losing  them.  And 

1  The  theory  of  this  necessary  alternation  is  worked  out  more  fully 
in  ^‘The  Meaning  of  God/^  chapters  xxviii,  xxxi,  xxxii.  See  also  E.  C. 
Cabot,  What  Men  Live  By,  part  IV,  Worship. 


EELIGION  PEE  SE  331 

he  that  apparently  renounces  them  all  may  be  the 
one  who  is  doing  most  for  their  conservation.^ 

As  for  art,  we  have  already  seen  that  it  depends 
upon  an  eye  for  realities.  The  artist  lives  by  what 
he  can  truly  see;  and  his  eye  for  reality  needs  to  be 
quickened  now  and  again,  not  by  gazing  harder  into 
his  work,  but  by  turning  to  a  region  in  which  the 
perception  of  reality  is  simple  and  immediate.  Such 
a  region  the  individual  artist  is  likely  to  find  in  social 
intercourse;  for  the  most  part,  persons  are  the  rela¬ 
tively  real  and  relatively  available  sources  of  all 
restoring  of  vision.  But  personal  intercourse  itself 
wears  thin  and  shallow  unless  it  reverts  to  its  own 
basis;  all  harks  back  at  length  to  the  absolute,  to 
religion.  Whether  at  first  or  second  hand,  the  artist 
is  pensioner  upon  the  bounty  of  the  mystic,  and  not 
vice  versa.  The  great  ages  of  religion  have  preceded 
the  great  ages  of  art,  and  of  science  also,  for  they  were 
attending  to  the  fertilization  of  the  ground. 

As  for  society  and  the  State,  it  is  the  death  of  every 
institution  when  it  begins  to  regard  itself  as  self- 
sufficient  or  worthy  of  devotion  in  its  own  right.  The 
only  State  that  has  a  chance  to  survive  upon  this  planet 
is  the  State  that  knows  that  its  power  is  not  in  itself, 
nor  its  right.  If  the  Sabbath  was  made  for  man,  so  is 
the  State.  And  the  onlv  obedience  that  can  serve  anv 

2  The  argument  is  that  there  must  be  a  distinct  place  in  the  economy 
of  life  for  the  cult  of  the  absolute  in  its  contrast  with  life,  and  if 
religion  is  the  name  of  this  place,  the  instinctive  motive  of  religion 
would  be  a  specific  craving  due,  whether  so  understood  or  not,  to  the 
atrophy  of  social  and  aesthetic  values,  a  craving  for  the  restoration  of 
creative  'power. 


332  AKT  AND  RELIGION 

State  well  is  the  obedience  of  men  who  are  servants 
of  a  Greater.  If  religion  tanght  men  how  to  he 
independent  of  the  State,  in  an  age  when  the  State  was 
everything,  it  might  well  appear  anti-political ;  and  yet 
from  the  spoils  of  this  rebellion  it  has  generated  the 
modern  State,  the  State  of  free  individuals,  which  is 
a  far  greater  thing.  The  Roman  type  of  State  has 
lost  its  life  in  trying  to  assert  it,  as  such  States  always 
will — but  the  State  lives — the  State  that  has  learned 
to  subordinate  its  sovereign  I-will  to  the  will  of  God, 
which  under  certain  conditions  may  he  discerned  in 
the  will  of  the  people. 

For  let  us  not  mistake  the  meaning  of  liberalism 
and  democracy:  they  do  not  mean  that  atomic  indi¬ 
viduals  and  their  inherent  rights  are  to  be  put  above 
the  community  and  its  welfare,  nor  that  any  and  every 
majority  is  right.  They  mean  that  the  individual  who 
finds  and  worships  his  God  stands  at  the  source  of  the 
community  and  its  welfare.  It  is  to  the  God-fearing 
individual  and  no  other  that  the  State  must  defer. 
And  conversely,  democracy  without  religion  is  neither 
a  true  nor  a  secure  principle  of  social  structure. 

We  thus  recognize  that  religion,  just  in  so  far  as  it 
understands  its  own  business,  must  insist  on  its  con¬ 
trast  with  all  social  goods,  must  have  its  asceticism 
and  other-worldliness,  can  never  come  in  the  guise  of 
a  social  code.  Those  who  accuse  Christianity,  for 
example,  of  having  no  social  code,  may  be  bearing 
indirect  witness  to  the  fact  that  it  knows  the  proper 
work  of  religion  per  se.  Religion  has  no  choice  but  to 
place  the  child  in  man,  the  total  unexpressed  self. 


EELIGION  PER  SE 


333 


above  the  institution;  and  to  provide  for  that  self  a 
kingdom  not  of  this  world.  For,  after  all,  this  Child 
is  the  strongest  thing  in  the  world,  and  no  human 
interest  can  be  strong  or  even  safe  which  does  not  first 
do  it  reverence.  The  sacred  law  already  perceived 
that  the  weak  in  man  must  control  society.  Eeligion 
cast  loose  from  the  law  singles  out  this  divine  spark 
as  that  upon  which  every  human  value  depends  for 
its  life. 

It  is  because  of  this  relation  to  creativity  that 
religion,  in  the  mere  ^  union  with  God,^  has  been  able 
to  satisfy  the  will  to  power  in  those  who  have  under¬ 
stood  its  paradox.  And  for  the  most  part  asceticism 
while  renouncing  power  of  one  sort  has  been  regarded 
as  a  way  to  power  of  another  sort.  It  has  been  a 
repression  of  partial  expressions  of  the  will  in  the 
interest  of  the  whole;  hence  its  total  effect  has  been 
one  of  sublimation,  not  of  repression  of  the  will  to 
power.  In  the  history  of  religious  asceticism  this  fact 
has  been  more  or  less  clearly  perceived:  the  devotees 
are  not  historically  describable  as  men  devoid  of 
ambition;  they  have  aimed  at  that  supreme  sort  of 
power  which  works  without  tools,  without  violence, 
without  self-assertion  or  competition,  yet  irresistibly, 
because  all  other  powers  are  derivative  or  relatively 
unreal. 

Thus  in  Vedantism.  Brahmanism  in  this  form 
abandons  its  interest  in  the  deed  and  the  law,  and,  as 
in  the  religion  of  Spinoza,  empties  all  passion  into 
the  will  to  know.  But  the  will  to  know  is,  in  this  form 


334 


AKT  AND  KELIGION 


of  religion,  equivalent  to  the  will  to  power;  for,  as  it 
teaches,  there  is  no  power  in  the  world  save  the  power 
of  knowledge  suh  specie  ceternitatis,  the  power  of 
knowledge  that  I  (and  every  particular  being)  am 
Brahm.  This  is  the  power  that  can  strike  off  the 
chains  of  reincarnation;  in  it  all  lesser  powers  are 
believed  to  be  included. 

Buddhism  still  more  completely  and  subtly  defines 
the  goal  of  all  passion  as  a  passionless  transparency 
of  seeing.  It  attacks  the  self-element  in  all  desire, 
demanding  that  the  individual  organism  shall  become 
the  instrument  of  a  perfect  universality  of  indiffer¬ 
ence,  to  which  neither  existence  nor  yet  non-existence 
shall  appear  as  an  object  of  strife.  For  even  in  the 
determined  rejection  of  existence  by  the  Brahmanic 
ideal  a  love  for  being  lies  concealed.  It  is  evident 
nevertheless  that  this  position  is  attractive  to  the 
Buddhist  because  of  the  initiation  which  it  represents 
into  the  very  moving  principles  of  the  cosmos;  the 
love  of  power  has  not  disappeared  into  something  else, 
but  has  taken  the  form  of  an  aspiration  for  meta¬ 
physical  status  with  all  the  power  over  one^s  own 
destiny  (and  over  other  men’s  minds)  therein  implied. 

Mediaeval  asceticism  is  at  once  less  philosophic  and 
more  self-conscious.  It  has  classified  its  own  enemies — 
its  tempters — with  greater  social  insight,  if  not  with 
keener  psychological  discrimination.  It  is  driven  to 
its  aloofness  neither  by  Paul  nor  by  Plato,  but  by  its 
own  original  self-scrutiny  as  we  find  it,  for  example, 
in  Augustine.  It  was  bound  to  declare  war  on  the 
lust  of  the  flesh,  the  lust  of  the  eyes,  and  the  pride  of 


EELIGION  PEE  SE 


335 


life,  because  of  its  own  knowledge  of  the  inadequacy 
of  these  goods  to  define  the  good  of  their  own  spirits. 
And  if  we  may  venture  to  interpret  the  recesses  of 
the  consciousness  of  the  mediaeval  saints,  as  they 
made  their  painful  and  glorious  itinerarium  mentis  in 
Deum,  it  was  not  without  its  own  form  of  the  will  to 
power.  Francis  of  Assisi  has  admitted  us  far  into 
the  mystery  of  sainthood  in  his  confession  of  his 
unwillingness  to  find  any  beggar  more  poor  than  he. 
For  he  was  the  jealous  lover  of  his  lady  Poverty;  and 
through  this  devotion  he  claimed  the  devotion  of 
others.  Asceticism  for  these  men,  as  for  the  ascetics 
of  all  ages,  had  the  value  of  a  demonstration  in  which 
the  surrounding  souls  were  necessary  adjuncts.  It 
intended  to  demonstrate  that  the  religious  satisfaction 
is  an  adequate  substitute  for  all  others ;  and  therewith 
to  announce  a  power  of  which  the  conquest  of  ordinary 
desire  is  a  natural  expression.  To  be  able  to  endure 
is  the  badge  of  the  entrance  of  the  divine  into  the  life 
of  the  flesh;  it  was  a  symptom  of  a  metaphysical 
achievement  which  carried  with  it  an  ascendency  over 
the  spirits  of  men. 

This  ideal  is  sufficiently  discredited ;  what  we  need  to 
point  out  is  that  its  errors  are  errors  of  insufficiency, 
not  of  a  false  direction.  So  far  as  human  lust,  greed, 
pugnacity,  and  the  quest  of  social  power  were  con¬ 
cerned,  the  religious  ascetic  has  moved  as  one  not 
seeing  them  in  others,  not  admitting  them  into  him¬ 
self,  and  so  not  solving  the  problems  which  they 
raised.  In  the  community  which  punished  guilt  he 
could  with  difficulty  play  his  part,  for  the  logic  of 


336 


ART  AND  RELIGION 


pugnacity  had  been  put  behind  him  and  forgotten. 
His  religion  had  too  far  lost  the  sense  of  the  insti¬ 
tution  and  of  the  law  to  have  part  in  their  development. 
Hence  religion  in  his  form  alone  could  neither  leaven 
the  community  nor  sustain  itself ;  and  so  it  largely 
failed  of  the  power  which  was  its  own  inward  nerve 
and  passion. 

It  did  not  entirely  fail.  In  the  forms  we  have 
mentioned,  it  has  atforded  much  of  the  independent 
reality  and  freedom  which  the  will  needs ;  it  has 
not  been  infertile.  But  worked-in  as  it  has  always 
been  with  the  social  life  it  has  rejected,  its  organic 
relations  thereto  have  been  obscure,  its  ‘moral  sub¬ 
stance^  thin,  and  the  ‘objective  arena’  for  the  will  to 
power  evanescent.  It  is  an  essential  part  of  religion, 
religion  per  se  in  its  contrast  with  the  rest  of  life;  it 
is  not  the  whole  of  religion.  What  religion  may  mean 
for  the  transformation  of  instinct  must  be  sought  in 
a  more  positive  religious  type. 


PAET  VII 
CHRISTIANITY 


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CHAPTER  XL 


WHAT  CHRISTIANITY  REQUIRES 

Most  rules  of  life,  secular  or  sacred,  undertake 
to  regulate  behavior:  they  are  addressed  to 
the  expression  of  instinct  in  action.  But  when  original 
Christianity  sums  up  its  rule  of  life,  it  addresses  itself 
to  the  feelings  or  affections.  Its  language  is.  Thou 
shalt  love  .  .  . ;  or.  If  any  man  come  to  me,  and  hate 
not  his  father  .  .  .  yea,  and  his  own  life  also,  he 
cannot  be  my  disciple.  Men  are  enjoined  to  ‘abhor 
that  which  is  evil,’  to  ‘set  their  affections  on  things 
above.’  It  attacks  what  McDougall  calls  the  second, 
or  middle,  region  of  instinct,  not  the  third :  the 
emotion,  not  the  response. 

The  command  of  love  to  God  and  to  neighbor  is  not 
new  in  Christianity:  it  is  taken  over  from  the  code  of 
Deuteronomy,  where  it  occurs  among  many  other 
precepts.  What  is  new  is  the  selective  principle  which 
lighted  upon  this  requirement  as  the  central  and 
essential  thing.  And  such  a  change  of  focus  is  a  new 
moral  venture ;  for  one  is  committed  to  all  the  corolla¬ 
ries  that  can  be  drawn  from  one’s  first  principle,  and 
it  is  in  them  that  its  novel  power  and  bearing  will  first 
appear. 

The  sermon  on  the  mount  may  be  regarded  as  a  mass 
of  such  corollaries.  Many  of  these  sayings  deal 


340 


CHKISTIANITY 


directly  with  expressions  of  pugnacity,  others  with  the 
love  of  the  sexes,  others  with  ambition.  And  they 
retain,  for  the  most  part,  the  peculiarity  of  the  first 
principle;  their  author  regards  himself  as  departing 
from  tradition  precisely  in  this,  that  the  requirement 

i 

is  transferred  from  the  outward  appearance  to  the 
heart.  Adultery  is  defined  not  in  terms  of  conduct, 
but  in  terms  of  wish;  murder  is  defined  in  terms  of 
anger.  And  by  way  of  hedging  off  the  instinctive 
tendency  to  evade  self-examination  by  relying  on  social 
approval,  it  is  particularly  enjoined  that  all  supposed 
righteousness  be  kept  hidden  from  the  admiring  eyes 
of  men, — including  oneself.  It  is  commonly  taken  as 
characteristic  of  Christianity  that  it  is  concerned  first 
of  all  for  the  inside  of  the  cup.’ 

But  there  is  something  psychologically  awry  in  a 
command  to  feel.  It  may  be  taken  as  evident  that  a 
person  cannot  at  will  love  his  neighbor,  still  less,  his 
enemy.  My  feelings,  of  course,  are  my  own,  my  most 
intimate  property,  and  most  property  I  can  exchange 
or  revise:  but  these  possessions  are  not  alienable  nor 
directly  alterable;  they  are  closely  identical  with  what 
I  am,  and  hence  appear  to  me  as  something  given, 
inevitable.  What  I  dislike,  I  dislike,  and  there  is  no 
help  for  it.  Spencer  accepts  this  fact  as  marking  the 
limit  of  human  freedom.  If  freedom  means  doing  as 
we  please,  then  we  have  freedom  without  limit;  the 
trouble  is  (as  we  see  when  we  reflect)  we  can  do 
nothing  else, — and  we  cannot  please  as  ive  please. 
Hence  a  command  to  hate  or  to  love  seems,  taken 
literally,  to  require  the  impossible. 


WHAT  CHKISTIANITY  KEQUIKES  341 

The  interpreters  commonly  surmount  this  difficulty 
by  giying  the  words  for  feeling  a  practical  meaning. 
To  loye  one’s  neighbor,  it  is  said,  has -nothing  to  do 
with  subjectiye  or  pathological  states;  we  are  simply 
called  upon  to  perform  those  acts  and  assume  those 
attitudes  which  would  express  good-will  if  we  had  it. 
We  are  to  behaye  ‘as  if’  we  loyed  our  neighbor.  The 
rule  of  loye  is  a  rule  of  seryice.  If  I  want  to  know 
what  loye  would  do  in  any  case,  the  golden  rule  sup¬ 
plies  complete  directions  without  calling  upon  any 
feelings  except  those  of  natural  egoism:  let  me  think 
what  I  would  want;  then  imaginatiyely  reyerse  the 
situation  and  act  accordingly,  “for  this  is  the  law  and 
the  prophets.”  Thus  the  new  principle  becomes,  like 
the  old,  a  matter  of  conduct:  the  stroke  of  genius  lies 
in  the  induction  which  finds  the  single  simple  principle, 
and  establishes  it  in  supreme  control.  It  is  through 
this  philosophic  mastery  and  sweep  that  the  new 
righteousness  exceeds  the  righteousness  of  the  scribes 
and  pharisees.  Thus  the  law  of  loye  is  interpreted 
pragmatically;  loye  is  as  loye  does. 

Is  it  possible  that  this  pragmatic  interpretation  may 
exactly  miss  the  characteristic  thing  about  Chris¬ 
tianity  by  pouring  back  into  behayior  that  which  the 
new  idea  proposed  to  lift  out  of  it  I  Can  I  with  any 
great  success  assume  toward  my  neighbor  a  type  of 
action  in  independence  of  my  feeling?  Granting  the 
James-Lange  theory  of  emotion  its  utmost,  I  may 
acquire  a  genial  and  kindly  habit  of  mind  which  will 
serye  to  oyercome  social  friction;  but  I  should  fear 


CHKISTIANITY 


342 

the  moral  result  of  a  determined  benevolence  of  bear¬ 
ing.  Have  we  not  seen  enough  of  the  officialized 
Christian  manner?  Certainly,  in  the  extreme  case,  to 
force  a  mould  of  philanthropic  action  over  a  rebellious 
gorge  could  hardly  claim  for  itself  the  sublime  spon¬ 
taneity  of  soul  which  is  represented  as  saying  in 
surprise,  ^^Lord,  when  saw  we  thee  an  hungered  and 
fed  thee?’’  Strangely  enough,  this  whole  pragmatic 
interpretation  smacks  rather  of  Kant  than  of  the  sage 
of  Nazareth.  What  if  the  demand  of  Christianity  were 
intentionally  and  literally  addressed  to  the  affections? 

The  apparent  psychological  impossibility,  I  confess, 
seems  to  me  quite  in  harmony  with  the  general  temper 
of  this  religion.  Under  the  guise  of  extreme  simplicity, 
it  repeatedly  demands  the  unattainable.  Thus  in  order 
to  enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  one  has  but  to  become 
as  a  little  child.  Kebirth,  or  conversion,  for  Chris¬ 
tianity,  means  a  recovery  of  something  which  children 
have  not  yet  lost.  It  might  not  occur  to  us  to  regard 
a  child  as  a  lover  either  of  God  or  of  man,  but  the  child 
is  certainly  not  a  pragmatic  servant :  what  can  be  said 
of  him  is  that  he  has  not  crossed  the  Eubicon  of  that 
analytic  and  utilitarian  intelligence  which  can  think 
of  persons  as  means  and  means  only,— with  all  his 
puny  self-assertion,  his  original  sympathy  with  his 
enveloping  personal  world  has  not  been  broken.  But 
we  have  crossed  that  Eubicon,  and  to  recover  the 
directness  of  relation  of  the  child  is  not  more  easy 
than  to  Gove’  in  any  other  sense.  It  is  hardly  more 
easy  than  to  be  perfect, — and  it  is  written,  ‘‘Be  ye 
therefore  perfect.” 


WHAT  CHRISTIANITY  REQUIRES  343 

As  I  understand  Christianity,  it  needs  little  inter- 
pretation,  for  it  means  as  nearly  as  possible  what  it 
says.  It  intends  to  state  its  requirement  in  terms  of 
a  complete  transformation  of  the  instincts;  it  is  on 
this  account  that  it  has  for  us  an  extreme  theoretical 
interest.  We  shall  consider  how  it  proposes  to  deal 
with  the  major  passions  of  the  private  and  the  public 
orders. 


CHAPTER  XLI 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  PUGNACITY 

There  is  no  better  test  of  any  rule  of  life  than 
its  way  of  settling  accounts  with  pugnacity. 
For  pugnacity  is  the  instinctive  agent  of  readjust¬ 
ment,  especially  of  the  deeper  and  abrupter  readjust¬ 
ments  :  if  human  nature  were  so  far  transformed  that 
there  were  no  more  readjustments  to  be  made,  within 
or  without,  pugnacity  would  of  necessity  disappear. 
The  last  conquest  of  pugnacity,  before  reaching  the 
ideal  state,  would  be  the  conquest  of  itself. 

In  society  as  we  find  it,  the  dialectic  of  experience 
has  made  a  certain  level  of  transformation  of  pug¬ 
nacity  habitual.  It  was  only  as  the  disposition  to  rush 
into  strife  was  tamed  that  society  on  an  ample  scale 
became  possible.  And  society  abets  this  dialectic  both 
by  its  rules  and  by  making  an  adequate  provision  for 
all.  Where  there  is  plenty,  men  may  be  persuaded  to 
accept  their  allotment  in  peace  (so  long  as  they  have 
faith  in  the  fairness  of  the  allotment) ;  but  where  there 
is  scarcity  or  the  suspicion  of  injustice,  there  is  a  ten¬ 
dency  to  revert  to  the  primitive  methods,  with  their 
risks  and  hopes.  But  the  most  orderly  and  successful 
society  is  still  surcharged  with  pugnacious  behavior 
in  various  ‘moral  equivalents.^  Apart  from  competi¬ 
tion,  discussion,  and  various  sorts  of  peaceful  rivalry. 


CHKISTIANITY  AND  PUGNACITY 


345 


there  is  the  pervasive  activity  of  the  critical  judgment. 
Wrath  against  defective  persons  and  institutions,  by 
being  circuited  through  the  processes  of  conceptual 
thought,  is  made  over  into  an  energy  for  their  repair 
rather  than  their  destruction.  Criticism,  armed  with 
various  weapons  of  peaceful  efficiency,  is  the  social 
ultimate  in  the  transforming  of  pugnacity. 

I  say  the  social  ultimate,  for  the  injunction  of  Chris¬ 
tianity,  Judge  not,’’  cannot  be  observed  in  human 
society.  Not  alone  because  progress  depends  on  the 
perpetual  work  of  this  negative  impulse,  with  others ; 
but  also  because  to  be  accurately  judged  and  measured 
is  a  vital  interest  of  every  self-conscious  being.  He 
who  wants  power  wants  self-knowledge;  and  he  who 
wants  self-knowledge  wants  criticism,  whether  or  not 
he  likes  it.  It  is  an  essential  ingredient  of  that  craving 
for  intercourse  v/ith  our  kind  which  we  sometimes  dub 
the  instinct  of  sociability’  that  we  anticipate  this 
mutual  appraisal,  sizing  up,”  incipient  locking  of 
horns,  the  Carlylian  question,  ^‘Can  I  kill  thee  or  canst 
thou  kill  me  I  ” ;  though  all  such  valuing  and  appraising 
implies  placing  in  a  series,  a  denial  of  absolute  worth 
in  the  respect  measured,  reduction  from  an  end  to  a 
means. 

It  is  in  the  ‘hard’  public  order  that  the  activity  of 
the  critical  judgment  is  most  evident;  for  there  the 
standards  are  most  objective  and  definite.  But  the 
critical  judgment  of  the  private  order  is  most  search¬ 
ing.  Here  it  takes  a  form  which,  for  lack  of  a  general 
name,  we  may  call  education  in  its  widest  sense. 
Education,  in  this  sense,  is  not  simply  a  deliberate 


346 


CHKISTIANITY 


transaction  which  takes  place  between  one  generation 
and  another.  It  occurs  whenever  two  human  beings 
are  associated,  and  without  necessary  intention.  It 
is  the  transaction  through  which,  by  a  hundred 
avenues  of  expression,  A’s  total  consciousness  of  B 
becomes  a  part  of  B’s  self-consciousness.  This  trans-  . 
action  is  always  selective,  always  critical,  and  always 
mutual. 

Ideals  of  education  are  held  before  us  in  which  no 
adverse  criticism  should  appear,  but  all  be  positive  and 
encouraging.  And  so  far  as  the  expressing  of  our 
judgment  is  concerned,  it  is  a  principle  of  the  greatest 
use  (because  it  is  nearer  the  truth)  to  dwell  on  what 
persons  are  rather  than  on  what  they  are  not.  It  is 
also  a  valuable  principle  to  express  few  judgments 
rather  than  many.  But  these  are  questions  of  art,  not 
of  substance:  and  in  regard  to  the  substance  of  the 
social  judgment,  it  is  vain  to  evade  the  negative 
element,  however  it  is  conveyed.  For  the  negative 
element  is  there;  we  must  be  true  to  our  own  aversions. 
And  further,  we  cannot  outwit  the  need  of  it  in  the 
dynamics  of  education:  to  be  conscious,  sometimes 
acutely,  of  what  we  are  steering  from,  is  a  part  of  our 
knowledge  of  what  we  are  steering  to;  and  the  ele¬ 
mental  spurs  of  fear  and  rue  and  pain  are  the  ever 
present  obverses  of  our  hope  and  confidence.  An 
assumed  uncondemning  or  wholly  beaming  attitude, 
unless  it  retains  the  permanent  possibility  of  instant 
challenge,  becomes  an  affectation  of  the  godlike  which 
departs  more  or  less  from  the  veritable  and  evokes  a 


CHKISTIANITY  AND  PUGNACITY  347 

like  departure  in  the  addressee,  robbing  intercourse 
of  reality  and  minimizing  the  meaning  of  all  language. 

The  most  effective  educating  agencies  known  to  us 
are  free  from  all  conscious  scruples  on  the  score  of 
criticism.  They  are  the  spontaneous  activities  of  those 
who  have  just  emerged  from  some  stage  of  relative 
defect,  and  take  a  corresponding  intensity  of  interest  in 
denouncing  that  stage  in  others.  The  hoy  who  has  just 
now  learned  to  swim  cannot  sufficiently  emphasize  the 
contrast  between  himself  and  those  who  still  flounder 
in  the  water.  Without  this  temper  and  its  sting,  the 
world  of  boys  would  be  robbed  of  its  immense  develop¬ 
ing  power,  and  at  the  same  time,  of  its  attraction:  it 
is  this  temper  that  creates  around  the  horizon  of  effort 
a  surcharged  sense  of  the  importance  of  just  this 
achievement.  Under  this  pressure  the  latent  powers 
rise  sufficiently  high  to  leap  the  harrier:  a  little  less 
concern  may  mean  permanent  failure  to  meet  the  last 
inch  of  the  requirement,  and  hence  to  find  what  one^s 
powers  actually  are.  Nowhere  could  society  afford  to 
dispense  with  the  zeal  of  recent  converts,  with  their 
unsullied  sense  of  the  magnitude  of  their  achieve¬ 
ment.  Their  estimate  is  probably  truer  than  ours 
who  look  oh  from  a  greater  distance;  for  who  most 
justly  appreciates  the  length  of  a  mile, — he  who 
remembers  it  after  a  day’s  rest,  or  he  who  has  just 
finished  the  last  of  twenty!  We  cannot  always  secure 
for  our  own  efforts  the  notable  spur  of  necessity,  nor 
do  we  forever  need  it;  but  if  we  are  deprived  of  the 
lash  of  a  sufficiently  critical  social  judgment,  we 
instinctively  try  to  replace  it  by  invented  task-masters 


348 


CHRISTIANITY 


within  ourselves.  And  until  we  shall  have  finished  our 
education  to  the  extent  of  ceasing  to  be  social  beings, 
this  replacement  is  never  quite  complete. 

Thus  society  expects  its  members  to  be  critical  of 
one  another,  both  in  personal  and  official  relations, 
while  conscious  of  the  dominant  power  of  the  positive 
social  bond.  The  health  of  social  movement  depends 
on  the  maintenance  by  individual  wills  of  a  certain 
distance  or  alienation  from  all  that  invites  to  total 
acquiescence,  or  absolute  social  satisfaction.^  Nor  is 
there  any  necessary  kinship  between  an  aliveness  to 
defect,  which  is  the  very  engine  of  personal  growth, 
and  a  cynical  temper.  But  it  remains  true  that  the 
critic  feels  himself  to  some  extent,  and  somewhere, 
criticised  by  his  own  criticism.  It  is  only  in  the 
ironical  mockery  of  a  Socrates  or  in  the  denunciations 
of  a  Christ  that  the  separative  judgment  loses  the 
quality  of  a  cry  of  pain.  This  is  not  the  final  trans¬ 
formation  of  pugnacity.  We  may  well  long  for  a 
world  in  which  Judge  noC’  were  possible. 

II 

Christianity  reveals  no  solicitude  for  the  neces¬ 
sities  of  the  social  order.  Its  precepts  are  explicit, 

1  No  account  of  the  philosophy  of  change  is  complete  which  refers 
it  alone  to  the  elan  vital  y^ith  its  perpetual  creativity,  nor  yet  to  the 
Unmoved  Mover  that  beckons  all  men  to  its  absolute  good.  To  these 
must  be  added  the  driving  power  of  the  standards  and  systems  which 
are  due  to  the  action  of  human  analysis  and  concept-making;  and  which 
by  ceaselessly  reminding  man  of  what  he  is  not,  through  criticism, 
exclusion,  and  negation,  spur  him  in  infinite  sequence  toward  their  own 
goals. 


CHKISTIANITY  AND  PUGNACITY  349 

and  Tolstoy  understood  them :  resist  not  evil,  love  your 
enemy,  judge  not,  recompense  evil  with  good.  These 
precepts  define  not  so  much  a  transformation  of 
pugnacity  as  an  abolition  of  it,  together  with  the 
whole  process  of  social  measurement  and  of  justice 
itself.  And  so  far  as  these  commands  are  provided 
wfith  a  commentary,  they  seem  not  alone  to  admit  but 
to  assert  an  abandonment  of  justice.  For  the  com¬ 
mentary  explains  that  these  principles  are  one  aspect 
of  the  perfection  of  ^^your  Father  which  is  in  heaven,’^ 
which  perfection  we  are  summoned  to  make  our  own: 
and  this  perfection  on  God’s  part  is  manifest  in  this, 
that  ^^He  maketh  his  sun  to  rise  on  the  evil  and  the 
good,  and  sendeth  rain  on  the  just  and  on  the  unjust.  ’  ’ 
In  other  words,  that  which  to  some  minds  appears  as 
the  total  moral  indifference  of  mechanical  nature  is 
here  held  up  as  the  perfection  of  God.  What  is  this 
but  to  make  the  absence  of  justice,  the  indiscriminate 
treatment  of  good  and  evil,  the  supreme  law  of  the 
spiritual  world? 

To  argue  thus  is  to  forget  that  what  is  mechanical 
behavior  in  the  inorganic  realm  is  no  longer  mechani¬ 
cal  in  the  realm  of  stimulus  and  response.  The  ocean 
responds  neither  to  the  blandishments  nor  to  the 
threats  of  Xerxes;  but  the  mechanisms  of  his  own 
menials  would  react  to  the  one  by  smiles  and  to  the 
other  by  signs  of  terror.  So  the  response  of  amiable¬ 
ness  to  the  amiable  approach,  and  the  response  of 
enmity  to  the  inimical  approach,  while  it  has  the 
semblance  of  justice,  and  the  sanction  of  the  aesthetic 
sacred  law,  is  the  type  of  a  moral  mechanism.  And 


350 


CHEISTIANITY 


to  refuse  to  respond  in  kind,  while  it  may  seem  to 
return  to  the  indifference  of  nature,  may  he  the  precise 
opposite  of  a  mechanical  attitude.  The  attacker 
expects  your  resistance;  if  you  do  not  resist,  your 
rejection  of  his  challenge  may  enter  the  situation  with 
the  force  of  a  new  idea. 

Like  all  surprises,  the  absence  of  resistance  where 
resistance  was  expected,  would  necessarily  arouse 
some  new  idea  in  the  aggressor  by  way  of  reviewing 
the  situation  in  his  mind.  His  new  idea,  however, 
might  be  one  of  several:  he  might  conclude  that  you 
were  too  dead  to  fight,  or  that  you  were  too  much  alive 
to  fight.  Christianity  depends  on  the  possibility  of 
putting  significance  into  the  latter  idea.  And  the 
persistent  refusal  to  criticise  or  to  retaliate  can  be  a 
sign  of  more  life,  rather  than  less,  only  when  it  is  a 
response  to  a  greater  degree  of  truth.  It  must  mean 
that  the  self  which  has  defects  or  which  does  injury 
is  seen  to  be  other  than  the  real  self;  and  the  non- 
resistance  constitutes  an  appeal  from  the  apparent 
self  to  the  real  self,  or  from' the  actual  self  to  the  self 
that  may  be.  In  this  case,  it  is  not  injustice,  hut  it  is 
justice  to  the  living  and  changeable.  It  is  a  type  of 
justice  undiscovered  by  the  Greek,  for  it  is  based 
neither  on  equity  nor  on  proportionality  to  any  self 
that  exists.  Greek  justice,  distributive  or  retributive, 
took  men  statically,  as  they  presented  themselves. 
This  type  of  justice  refuses  to  take  a  man  at  his  own 
estimate  of  himself;  it  insists  on  the  self  of  a  more 
nearly  absolute  estimate,  the  self  that  must  he,  and 
which  this  resolve  of  the  non-resisting  will  will  help 


CHEISTIANITY  AND  PUGNACITY 


351 


to  bring  into  being.  It  is  a  justice  done  for  the  first 
time  to  the  plasticity  and  responsiveness  of  human 
nature  toward  our  own  wills :  it  is  an  absolute,  or 
creative,  justice. 

And  this  is  the  only  type  of  response  that  can  finally 
satisfy  pugnacity  itself.  For  what  pugnacity  wants 
is  not  simply  the  destruction  of  evil :  it  wants  the  evil 
will  to  hate  and  destroy  its  own  evil.  The  element 
of  hate  in  fighting  and  punishment  and  criticism  is 
directed  toward  making  the  guilty  consciousness  con¬ 
sume  its  own  iniquity;  and  to  this  end  the  instinctive 
ferocity  of  gesture  and  grimace  make  for  forcing  the 
evil-doer  by  suggestion  into  a  momentary  abhorrence 
and  fear  of  his  own  crime.  But  the  evil  will  will  not 
hate  itself,  unless  it  first  becomes  the  good  will :  hence 
pugnacity  is  not  satisfied  unless  the  replacement  of 
the  evil  by  the  good  takes  place.  And  when  it  takes 
place,  that  which  was  to  be  hated  has  disappeared. 
Hence,  what  pugnacity  wants  is  to  mahe  the  man  over: 
it  wants  to  create  the  conditions  for  the  free  self¬ 
rejection  of  the  evil.  And  for  this  act  of  creation,  the 
absolute  justice  of  ‘‘Love  your  enemies’’  is  a  necessary 
demand. 


Ill 

Christianity  intends  to  impose  upon  pugnacity  the 
interpretation  of  a  creative  impulse.  This  is  its  final 
transformation.  And  if  we  have  rightly  discerned  the 
meaning  of  these  precepts,  we  are  in  a  position  to  judge 
whether  they  intend  to  do  away  at  once  with  social 
criticism,  or  social  justice,  or  war.  Let  me  mention 


352 


CHKISTIANITY 


two  or  three  principles  which  will  govern  onr  decision 
on  these  questions. 

1.  The  forgiving,  or  non-resisting,  or  enemy-loving 
attitude  has  its  entire  justification  in  the  ^new  idea’ 
which  it  conveys  to  the  wrong-doer.  It  is  a  language ; 
and  the  whole  virtue  of  a  language  is  that  it  is  under¬ 
stood.  The  attitude  itself,  we  saw,  was  outwardly 
indistinguishable  from  apathy  or  indifference :  it  must 
by  all  means  distinguish  itself  from  apathy  or  indif¬ 
ference,  or  it  is  a  failure.  He  who  so  uses  non- 
resistance  that  it  is  mistakable  for  passivity,  weakness, 
cowardice,  or  folly,  uses  it  unworthily;  and  shows 
thereby  that  he  knows  not  what  it  means. 

Letting  myself  be  cheated  or  abused  through 
lethargy  or  lack  of  time  or  courage  to  make  an  issue 
cannot  be  claimed  as  an  exhibition  of  divine  perfection. 
Unless  I  am,  as  a  fact,  so  much  a  seer  as  to  be  a  lover 
of  my  enemy,  it  is  both  futile  and  false  to  assume  the 
behavior  of  love:  we  can  generally  rely  on  the  enemy 
to  give  such  conduct  its  true  name.  And  love  of  this 
sort  is  seldom  possible  in  the  more  transitory  and 
impersonal  relations  of  life :  it  is  in  the  quieter 
contacts  of  man  with  man  that  this  creative  language 
has  its  best  chance  of  being  heard.  In  the  dealings  of 
a  composite  national  mind  wfith  another  composite 
national  mind,  I  believe  that  there  is  a  possibility  of 
using  the  language  of  creative  good  will:  but  the 
conditions  are  harder  to  realize,  and  the  penalties 
for  an  enforcement  of  falselv  affectionate  conduct 
deservedly  severe. 

2.  Not  only  must  the  user  of  this  language  consider 


CHKISTIANITY  AND  PUGNACITY  353 

whether  he  can  use  it  honestly;  he  must  consider  also 
whether  he  has  a  listener.  It  is  sometimes  necessary 
to  induce  a  quiescent  frame  of  mind  in  the  other  before 
any  language  can  ‘get  across.’  There  is  such  a  thing 
in  the  world  as  persistent  and  self-assured  cynicism; 
and  there  is  such  a  thing  as  determined  had  will.  It 
is  chiefly  these  which  make  wars  necessary.  War  is 
not  to  he  understood  as  necessarily  a  negation  of  the 
principle  of  Christianity;  a  just  war  is  an  attempt  to 
create  the  conditions  under  which  the  opponent  is 
disposed  to  listen  to  the  language  of  the  still,  small 
voice. 

3.  The  creative  attitude  is  not  meant  to  displace 
hut  to  subordinate  the  critical  attitude,  and  its 
varieties,  the  competitive,  the  punitive,  the  warlike 
attitudes. 

Antagonism  is  not  an  intrinsic  evil ;  it  is  an  evil  only 
when  it  is  not  included  within  a  fundamental  agree¬ 
ment.  If  it  is  understood  that  the  contestants  have 
shaken  hands,  they  may  attack  each  other  with  entire 
good  will.  What  would  become  of  the  game  of  chess 
under  the  rule,  “If  any  one  would  take  away  your 
castle,  give  him  your  queen  also”?  If  an  abstractly 
devised  era  of  good-feeling  destroys  the  era  of  good 
chess,  or  of  any  more  serious  competition  wherein  men 
are  fairly  tested,  it  will  not  long  remain  an  era  of  good 
feeling.  Politeness  may  he  regarded  as  an  artful 
assumption  of  universal  benevolence  for  the  purpose 
of  a  restricted  social  undertaking :  it  does  not  rule  out 
all  contests,  but  it  rules  out  those  that  would  disturb 
the  predominantly  aesthetic  character  of  the  limited 


354 


CHKISTIANITY 


occasion.  Just  in  so  far  as  politeness  oversteps  its 
sphere,  it  becomes  the  covering  of  the  bitterest  hos¬ 
tility,  that  which  fences  from  beneath  the  cloak  of 
formal  friendliness.  Amenity  without  opposition 
becomes  empty;  even  lovers  weary  of  it.  The  force 
of  the  rule  of  love  in  common  social  interchange  is 
directed,  not  to  eliminating  the  critical  judgment,  hut 
rather  to  making  firm  that  prior  understanding 
according  to  which  we  unite  in  the  will  to  stand  or  fall 
by  the  rules  of  the  proposed  contest. 

Thus,  the  world  must  have  both  systems.  Contest 
is  a  peril  to  the  soul;  criticism  cannot  exist  without 
some  self-condemnation:  but  the  salvage  of  human 
nature  lies  not  in  abandoning  them,  hut  in  giving  them 
the  true  setting.  Eeligion  has  the  office  of  referring 
men  to  the  absolute;  not  the  absolute  which  removes 
them  from  the  relative,  but  the  absolute  which  by 
establishing  a  point  of  rest  within  the  flux  of  change, 
gives  all  change,  with  its  effort,  and  its  hostilities,  its 
total  meaning. 

For  this  reason  I  cannot  agree  with  those  inter¬ 
preters  of  Christianity  who  say  that  Christianity  sets 
up  an  ideal  for  an  ideal  state  of  society,  not  for  the 
present.  Christianity  is  never  more  clearly  a  rule  for 
immediate  adoption  than  in  its  dealing  with  pugnacity. 
It  expresses  the  final  satisfaction  of  the  will  of  the 
fighter  in  the  midst  of  every  good  fight. 


I 


CHAPTER  XLII 

CHRISTIANITY  AND  SEX-LOVE 

Not  a  few  lovers  of  peace  are  now  reminding  us 
of  the  doctrine  of  non-resistanee  in  Christianitv, 
urging  us  in  its  name  to  forget  the  arts  of  war.  It 
hardly  occurs  to  these  persons  to  carry  the  same  logic 
into  the  region  of  sex-morality.  The  more  consistent 
abstractionists,  like  Tolstoy,  perceived  that  the  letter 
of  the  new  law  is  not  less  hostile  to  the  family  and  to 
the  State  than  to  the  use  of  force.  If  pacifism  quotes 
Christianity,  it  may  well  learn  from  Tolstoy  either  to 
renounce  sex-love  together  with  physical  resistance,  or 
to  find  a  place  for  both. 

On  the  meaning  and  destiny  of  sex-love  Christianity 
has  little  to  say.  But  if  we  read  together  with  the 
documents  the  tendencies  that  worked  themselves  out 
in  the  early  communities,  there  can  be  no  question  of 
its  preference  for  virginity.  The  monastic  ideal  is 
implicit  in  its  standards.  The  sword  which  it  brought 
was  to  divide  between  a  man  and  his  family  as  well 
as  his  possessions:  Leave  alP^  for  the  sake  of  the 
new  kingdom, — this  injunction  was  meant  and  taken 
in  deadly  earnest,  and  without  this  intense  singleness 
of  purpose  early  Christianity  would  not  have  done  its 
work  in  the  world.  It  would  not  be  untrue  to  the  sense 
of  Christianity  to  set  up  beside  the  ‘‘Judge  not,’^  i.e.. 


356 


CHRISTIANITY 


Know  not  enmity  or  defect,  a  corresponding  precept, 
^‘Know  not  sex,^^  i.e.,  Eegard  all  persons  as  persons, 
and  never  as  men  or  women. 

We  cannot  say  in  advance  that  it  is  impossible  to 
comply  with  such  a  precept.  The  life  of  sex,  in  the 
social  order,  is  hardly  as  inevitable  for  the  individual 
as  is  pugnacity:  there  are  those,  and  their  number 
increases,  who  seem  to  make  out  a  complete  life  without 
it.  It  is  true  that  the  psychological  function  of  the 
family  must  somehow  be  performed  if  men  and  women 
are  to  retain  their  normal  balance.  But  it  is  not  at  all 
obvious  that  this  function  must  be  performed  hy  sex- 
love  itself;  for  while  sex  is  the  deepest  of  the  hungers, 
it  is  also  the  most  versatile  in  its  capacity  for  substi¬ 
tution  or  sublimation.  The  Freudians  are  doubtless 
right  in  saying  that  such  a  need  cannot  safely  be  re¬ 
pressed.  But  we  want  to  know  what  it  is  that  may  not 
he  repressed.  We  would  do  well  to  enquire  more  care¬ 
fully  what  sex-love  in  its  own  natural  self -teaching,  or 
dialectic,  means. 


I 

It  would  seem  the  first  point  of  wisdom  in  dealing 
with  this  question  to  be  clear  that  the  need  which 
we  call  sex-love  has  a  meaning,  like  every  other 
instinct;  and  that  to  find  this  meaning  requires  an 
effort  of  interpretation.  The  use  of  the  word  ^ instinct^ 
here  is  likely  to  carry  with  it  the  greatest  volume  of 
sophistry;  for  it  is  so  easy  to  assume  and  so  far  from 
the  truth  that  we  know  off-hand  what  an  instinct  wants. 
It  is  impossible  to  read  the  psychological  meaning  of 


CHKISTIANITY  AND  SEX-LOVE 


357 


any  instinct  in  its  biological  context,  and  more  par¬ 
ticularly  the  instinct  of  sex.  The  biological  meaning 
is  more  likely  to  be  found  from  the  psychological  end. 

What  the  psychological  function  of  sex-love  is  we 
have  already  vaguely  outlined  in  describing  it  as  the 
passion  of  the  private  order,  corresponding  to  ambi¬ 
tion  in  the  public  order.  It  is  the  life  of  the  residual 
self,  unexpressed  in  the  public  order.  The  sexes  are 
fitted  to  recognize  more  of  the  subconscious  and  grow¬ 
ing  in  one  another  than  can  ordinarily  be  appreciated 
between  members  of  the  same  sex ;  they  are  drawn  into 
a  protective  attitude  toward  whatever  is  groping  and 
^unsaved’  in  the  other  self.  An  extension  of  ‘sym¬ 
pathy,^  love  appears  as  a  premonition  of  a  power  to 
confer  and  to  receive  life  at  a  profounder  level  than 
that  of  words  and  services.  Thus  the  craving  of  sex 
on  its  psychological  side  might  be  roughly  described 
as  a  craving  for  subconscious  respiration. 

In  this  respiration,  the  quest  of  power,  visible  as  an 
impulse  toward  bringing  the  ineffective  self  into  effect, 
is  paradoxically  mingled  with  an  impulse  toward  com¬ 
plete  self-abandonment.  Passion  always  means  the 
reference  of  the  whole  of  life  to  a  new  focus,  and  hence 
a  thoroughgoing  abandonment  of  rival  foci ;  but  in  the 
case  of  love,  the  distinctive  joy  of  abandonment  is  pre¬ 
pared  by  a  recurrent  need  which  no  one  escapes.  I 
mean  the  need  to  denounce  from  time  to  time  the 
expression  one  finds,  not  alone  in  public  service,  but 
in  all  social  activity  and  in  the  language  of  all  conven¬ 
tions  and  of  all  intellectual  concepts, — to  denounce 
these  not  as  false  but  as  inadequate,  and  to  break 


358 


CHKISTIANITY 


through  into  a  region  of  expression  which  is  imme¬ 
diate  and  entire,  and  yet  a  language,  a  communion 
with  another  self.  Such  a  subordination  of  the  rela¬ 
tively  futile  to  a  relatively  adequate  language,  the  life 
of  sex  with  its  symbols  seems  to  promise.  Intimacy 
and  the  symbols  of  intimacy,  the  throwing  together 
of  all  concrete  fortunes, — the  fortunes  of  thought,  of 
the  plans,  labors,  and  economies  of  life,  and  of  the 
physical  being  also, — radicalism  of  this  sort  offers  a 
prospect  of  complete  release  for  that  deeper  will  which 
is  forever  brooding  over  its  visible  career  and  finding 
it  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit, — as  taken  alone,  it  is. 

This  prospective  release  of  the  deeper  strata  of 
personality  in  the  lover  is  due  to  a  discovery — the 
‘stimulus’  of  his  love — an  item  of  knowledge,  if  you 
will;  for  like  all  instinct,  love  has  at  its  core  a  char¬ 
acteristic  perception  or  intuition.  This  knowledge  is, 
in  the  first  place,  simply  his  own  newly  awakened 
perception,  his  ‘sympathetic  intelligence’  of  what  the 
beloved  being,  apart  from  all  acquired  excellences,  is. 
This  knowledge  is  presumably  not  scientifically  new, 
except  in  so  far  as  it  is  a  knowledge  of  that  unique 
individual.  What  makes  the  experience  one  of  love 
is  that  this  unique  acquisition  of  the  gift  of  sight  with 
reference  to  that  unique  person  is  simply  the  lover’s 
initiation  into  an  old  and  well-known  mystery.  What 
is  it,  then,  that  he  sees  ? 

The  answer,  so  far  as  it  is  general,  may  be  found 
in  asking  what,  after  all,  that  being,  or  any  other  con¬ 
scious  being,  is.  And  what  is  such  a  being  if  not  a 
process  of  thoughtful  and  active  intercourse  with  its 


( 


CHKISTIANITY  AND  SEX-LOVE  359 

own  environment!  To  perceive  such  a  being  would 
be  to  perceive  a  process  of  dealing  with  the  world,  and 
thus  to  see  the  world  through  that  being.  What  love 
sees  does  not  stop  short  of  the  realities :  its  horizon, 
its  stimulus,  is  metaphysical.  The  truth  seems  to  be 
that  the  minds  of  men  and  women  are  so  made  that 
each,  by  the  aid  of  the  other,  may  see  farther  into  the 
universe  than  either  can  see  by  itself  or  by  the  aid  of 
others  of  its  own  kind.  And  what  one  seems  to  see  in 
the  other  is  largely  seen  through  the  other:  what  ap¬ 
pears  to  be  a  quality  of  the  individual  turns  out  to  be 
a  quality  of  the  world.  This  is  not  to  deny  these 
qualities  of  the  individual,  however;  for  the  beauty 
and  worth  of  a  person  are  not  separable  from  the  world 
of  objects  into  which  that  person  habitually  looks. 

But  whatever  the  content  of  this  half -personal,  half¬ 
metaphysical  vision,  the  first  impulse  and  meaning  of 
love,  like  that  of  art  in  response  to  the  beautiful,  is  to 
possess  what  it  has  seen  by  reproducing  it.  It  under¬ 
takes  to  edit,  portray,  proclaim,  give  out  in  some  way 
its  discovery,  and  preferably  to  a  worthy  rather  than 
to  an  unworthy  audience,  hence  (with  the  character¬ 
istic  inward-turning  of  love)  commonly  to  the  beloved 
person  himself.  Thus  the  will  to  power  seems  reduced 
and  tamed  to  the  idle  form  of  praise^  and  spends  the 
energy  that  might  have  moved  the  world  in  adorn¬ 
ment,  idealization,  and  numerous  busy  offices  called 
into  being  not  for  their  utility,  but  solely  for  the  ele¬ 
ment  of  praise  which  they  embody.  But  praise,  it  may 
be  noted,  under  the  guise  of  service,  is  still  a  subtle 
taking-possession,  an  assertion  of  comprehension  and 


360 


CHKISTIANITY 


right.  And  all  taking-possession  in  the  progress  of 
love  may  (with  allowance  for  feeble  terms  where  all 
terms  are  feeble)  be  described  as  a  development  of 
praise :  with  increasingly  intimate  care  and  service 
there  is  consistent  enlargement  of  that  assumed  right 
until  it  ventures  to  include  in  its  scope  the  entire  gamut 
of  the  being  of  the  beloved,  from  thought  to  immediate 
existence,  and  to  render  back  this  entire  gamut  as 
something  known,  comprehended,  praised, — and  yet 
with  the  imprint  upon  it  of  that  once  alien  will,  the 
consciousness  of  the  lover  and  knower. 

Especially  in  dealing  with  the  meaning  of  love,  the 
notion  of  ‘  power  ^  threatens  to  become  inept.  For  it 
is  precisely  in  love  that  the  whole  conscious  interest  in 
power  seems  neutralized  and  rendered  latent  by  the 
dominant  interest  in  mutuality,  in  getting  rid  of  all 
distance  and  otherness.  No  doubt  the  lover  comes  into 
a  kind  of  incidental  power  or  confidence  toward  the 
world  at  large — if  he  is  accepted ;  he  may  even  be  said 
to  taste  greatness :  but  the  greatness  is  conferred  upon 
him,  the  power  is  borrowed  rather  than  his  own. 
Between  the  lovers,  also,  there  is  a  wholly  mutual  sense 
of  dignity  which  comes  from  the  awareness  of  validity : 
with  their  other  metaphysical  knowledge,  the  lovers 
also  know  that  between  them — not  in  either  of  them — 
the  tribe  is  present;  the  promise  and  potency  of 
humanity  as  a  self-continuing  stream  of  conscious  life 
is,  if  not  in  their  keeping,  still  within  reach  of  their 
conjuring.  But  what  thus  seems  their  power  is  not 
their  own :  it  is  the  power  of  nature  and  of  society. 

But  I  would  still  say  that  just  because  of  this  vica- 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SEX-LOVE 


361 


rioDsness  and  latency,  the  will  to  power  here  notably  ■ 
conies  to  its  own.  For  power  is  realized  not  primarily 
in  self-assertive  exertion,  but  rather  in  taking  advan¬ 
tage  of  the  hierarchical  arrangement  of  the  powers  of 
the  world,  affecting  large  issues  by  touching  their 
springs.  The  technique  and  strategy  of  love  is  just 
this,  that  it  works  back,  so  to  speak,  toward  the  focus 
of  the  world’s  forces,  the  tilting  point  of  the  avalanche. 
It  touches  the  curve  of  life  at  the  moment  of  its  bend¬ 
ing  from  the  rise  to  the  decline,  where  but  an  increment 
of  strength  suffices  to  work  the  miracle  and  hold  life 
away  from  the  gravitation  of  mortality.  Thus,  in¬ 
stinctively,  love  finds  itself  assuming  for  a  brief  mo¬ 
ment  the  actual  work  of  a  god:  it  undertakes,  while 
acting  as  a  channel  for  universal  life,  to  be  an  original 
maker  of  life. 

II 

These  undertakings,  I  say,  are  incipient  in  the  first 
impulse  of  love.  But  in  carrying  out  its  primary 
ambitions,  love  finds  subjective  satisfactions  and 
pleasures,  and  on  account  of  these,  love,  as  a  matter 
of  racial  and  typical  if  not  of  universal  experience, 
suffers  a  fall.  The  fall  is  that  it  adopts  as  an  end  the 
subjective  joy  that  it  has  discovered.  It  limits  its 
horizon;  and  mingling  an  overweight  of  sense  in  its 
meaning,  it  becomes  selfish.  It  draws  circles,  creates 
an  imaginary  world  of  two,  and  thinks  that  all  the 
sufficiencies  of  the  universe  are  contained  within  it. 
No  love  begins  by  seeing  in  love  primarily  a  natural 


362 


CHKISTIANITY 


desire ;  but  some  loves  end  that  way,  and  most  at  some 
time  or  other  tend  to. 

What  forces  love  out  of  this  circle  as  a  rule  is  not 
abstract  idealism  but  simply  the  experience  of  self¬ 
defeat,  i.e.,  the  natural  dialectic.  It  finds  that  it  cannot 
retain  even  its  own  narrow  type  of  satisfaction,  because 
it  has  mistaken  its  meaning.  It  is  forced  to  break  out 
of  that  circle  for  the  very  breath  of  life  it  sought  there. 
This  is  a  critical  juncture  in  the  adventure  of  love. 
For  while  love  now  knows  beyond  peradventure  that 
it  has  been  disappointed,  it  may  not  see  clearly  where 
the  repair  of  its  fortunes  lies.  One  of  the  most 
inviting  of  hypotheses  is  that  it  has  chosen  the  wrong 
individual  as  an  object  of  devotion.  What  it  thought 
it  saw  in  that  person  is  clearly  not  there.  It  may  ac¬ 
cordingly  betake  itself  to  ivandering,  as  a  cure  for  its 
confinement  in  what  is  subjective  and  poor  of  meaning. 
Fickleness  is  right  and  ^natural’  in  all  that  it  denies, — 
it  denies  that  that  was  satisfying.  But  fickleness  is 
more  than  likely  to  be  false  in  what  it  affirms.  It  has 
a  negatively  pragmatic  value  in  the  course  of  the 
dialectic  of  experience:  that  which  does  not  work,  is 
not  the  real  thing. 

Ill 

It  is  at  this  point  that  social  pressure  comes  to  the 
rescue.  The  office  of  social  pressure  is  to  force  dis¬ 
illusioned  love  into  another  inference  than  that  of 
natural  wandering.  Its  satisfaction  was  lost,  not 
because  its  first  vision  was  deceptive,  but  because  it 
has  by  its  own  self-will  obscured  that  first  vision. 


CHKISTIANITY  AND  SEX-LOVE 


363 


What  it  first  saw  was  an  independent  soul;  and  that 
soul  has  now  heen  reduced  to  dependence  upon  itself. 
What  one  has  wearied  of  is  the  limited  and  clinging 
lover,  having  no  independent  grasp  on  absolute  reality 
and  value,  and  therefore  opaque  to  what  was  once 
visible  through  him.  To  that  first  spirit  it  could 
minister  with  pleasure,  or  rather,  by  necessity ;  to  the 
present  being  it  can  bring  only  requests  for  its  own 
satisfaction.  It  is  not  that  the  person  has  changed, 
but  that  the  horizon,  from  which  all  personal  worth  is 
derived,  has  shrunk.  The  only  being  you  can  love  is 
the  being  who  has  an  independent  object  of  worship, 
and  that  holds  you  out  of  your  self-indulgence  to  a 
worship  of  that  same  object.  The  health  and  meaning 
of  love  depend  on  that  common  devotion  to  a  common 
divinity.  Now  society  insists  on  a  part  of  this  horizon ; 
it  reminds  marriage  of  its  responsibility  to  the  public 
order;  it  takes  hostages  against  too  easy  wandering, 
providing  that  any  retreat  shall  be  as  public  and  as 
well  considered  as  the  original  commitment.  It  thus 
compels  a  fickle  impulse  at  least  to  re-examine  its 
theory  of  the  case,  and  so  provides  for  a  time  the  ex¬ 
ternal  form  of  loyalty,  in  the  good  hope  that  the  pair 
will  supply  the  substance  thereof  from  their  own  living 
resources.  But  of  itself,  society  cannot  provide  this 
substance,  and  its  pressure  in  favor  of  its  conventional 
family  life,  helpful  to  great  majorities  in  the  quest  of 
their  own  individual  meanings,  leaves  the  few  without 
a  guide  and  empty,  mere  rebellious  conformists,  or  non¬ 
conformists.  Society  cannot  revive  a  dead  or  comatose 


364 


CHEISTIANITY 


affection;  it  cannot  so  mncli  as  explain  to  the  arid  ex¬ 
lover  what  it  is  that  he  wants. 

Such  explanation  is  the  work  of  the  philosopher ;  and 
Plato  came  nearer  to  fulfilling  this  ofiice  than  most 
other  thinkers  of  ancient  or  modern  times.  All  love, 
said  he,  as  it  becomes  aware  of  its  meaning,  is  a 
demand  for  immortality  through  creation  in  the 
medium  of  beauty.’’  Ignorant  love  forgets  that  its 
horizon  is  immortality:  enlightened  love  realizes  that 
its  meaning  is  only  completely  found  when  personal 
and  family  relations  are  left  behind;  it  is  found  in 
that  metaphysical  element  which  all  love  more  or  less 
dimly  reveals,  in  the  quest  and  transmission  by  teach¬ 
ing  of  the  knowledge  of  what  is  absolutely  real.  It 
is  in  the  giving  of  that  second  birth  of  which  the 
Brahmans  taught,  rather  than  in  the  giving  of  the 
first  birth,  that  the  full  satisfaction  of  love  is  to  be 
found.  Thus  sex-love,  completely  understood,  has  no 
psychological  need  of  physical  relationship  nor  of 
marriage;  and  Plato  seems  to  speak  in  total  accord 
with  the  voice  of  early  Christianity. 

But  there  are  few  today  who  accept  the  interpre¬ 
tation  of  Plato  as  complete.  Nor  does  it  seem  to  me 
complete,  nor  equivalent  to  the  purport  of  Christianity. 


IV 

To  reach  a  completer  view  of  the  meaning  of  love, 
I  must  recall  that  in  that  stage  of  the  dialectic  which 
we  described  as  the  ffall  of  love,’  there  is  a  gain  as 
well  as  a  loss  of  meaning.  And  the  element  of  meaning 
here  gained  is  not  included  in  Plato’s  interpretation. 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SEX-LOVE 


365 


For  when,  by  self-indnlgence,  the  circle  of  love 
narrows,  the  beloved  is  at  times  within  the  circle,  a 
fellow  conspirator  in  the  limitation;  and  at  times 
ontside  the  circle.  And  when  the  eye  tempered  by 
self-interest  sees  the  other  in  this  external  fashion,  it 
sees  him  impersonally  and  critically.  His  defects  are 
visible,  not  at  all  for  the  first  time  (for  love  is  not 
blind,  it  is  merely  confident),  but  in  the  new  light  of 
a  problem, — a  problem  which  the  private  order  must 
share  with  the  public  order.  These  defects  are  likely^ 
to  become  the  object  of  a  suffering  criticism,  the  type 
of  criticism  which  condemns  the  critic,  but  which,  none 
the  less,  has  its  own  measure  of  truth.  In  brief,  the 
evolution  of  love  begins  to  include  within  itself,  more 
or  less  unavowedly,  a  segment  of  the  development  of 
pugnacity.  And  pugnacity  always  deals  with  the 
concrete;  it  is  a  highly  contemporaneous  and  indi¬ 
vidualizing  impulse.  It  does  not  permit  the  growth 
of  love  to  take  a  Platonic  direction  from  the  more 
material  to  the  more  ethereal  objects  of  contemplation. 
It  reminds  it  of  its  highly  particular  historic  task. 
Whatever  its  meaning,  it  must  include  all  that  a  com¬ 
pletely  transformed  pugnacity  means:  it  must  learn 
the  art  of  recovering  in  the  other  the  absolute  self 
disposed  to  reject  its  own  imperfection. 

Love  is  the  best  agent  for  the  instruction  of  pug¬ 
nacity;  but  pugnacity,  in  turn,  is  (in  some  form  or 
other)  a  very  fit  agent  for  the  instruction  of  a  flagging 
love.  What  it  has  to  teach  is  no  more  than  what  love 
all  along  knew,  namely,  its  own  interest  in  the  removal 
of  defects  from  the  beloved,  its  uncompromising 


366 


CHRISTIANITY 


jealousy  of  all  such  defects,  its  wholly  sufficient  power 
to  overcome  them.  This  is  love’s  responsibility;  but 
let  me  say  that  in  the  integrity  of  the  natural  impulse 
of  love,  it  is  an  ingredient  of  love ’s  enthusiasm.  Love 
does  not  want  a  perfect  object:  it  wants  an  object  to 
be  made  over,  fit  for  its  own  power  of  re-creation. 
The  meaning  of  the  great  passion  is  not  found  pri¬ 
marily  in  bringing  forth  a  race  of  new  beings  who 
shall  realize  in  time  all  that  was  lacking  to  their 
progenitors.  Its  meaning  like  that  of  religion  itself 
is  a  claim  upon  present  experience.  It  means  nothing 
less  than  the  destruction  of  what  is  recognized  as 
mortal — I  do  not  say  in  the  other,  but  in  both,  and  in 
their  mutual  life — and  its  re-creation  in  the  light  of 
whatever  beauty  it  has  seen.  But  its  impulse  to  de¬ 
stroy  that  mortality  and  to  reproduce  that  beauty  is 
no  more  one  of  abstract  immortalization  than  is  the 
work  of  an  artist:  it  is  a  very  concrete  and  present 
aim.  More  than  this,  such  a  transformation  is  what 
love  actually,  though  subconsciously,  and  more  or  less 
permanently,  achieves. 

Thus  the  dialectic  of  love  reaches  an  interpretation 
more  active  than  Platonic  and  more  absorbing  of  the 
entire  soul-and-body  entity.  Love  is  that  region  of 
life  which  exists  in  giving  life ;  and  this  means  develop¬ 
ing  the  possibilities  of  a  mutual  existence  both  of  sense 
and  of  idea.  It  is  satisfied  only  when  its  power  can 
work  in  a  completely  historic  form.  It  ministers  to 
the  soul,  but  always  by  way  of  body  and  estate.  Its 
first  impulsive  certainty  of  power  it  must  replace  by 
a  more  conscious  and  responsible  certainty.  But  if  the 


CHKISTIANITY  AND  SEX-LOVE  367 

interest  in  life-giving  sinks  into  tolerance  and  habitual 
modus  Vivendi,  love  is  hibernating  or  dead.  It  is 
better  that  it  should  remain  consciously  critical.  For 
love  is  by  necessity  aggressive  and  originative. 

V 

Christianity  sets  itself  at  the  goal  of  this  dialectical 
development,  careless  as  always  of  the  relations  of 
the  goal  to  the  usual  social  process.  It  sets  an  absolute 
standard  for  the  relations  of  men  and  women;  but  it 
hardly  suggests  that  this  standard  is  to  be  reached 
through  any  such  course  of  experience  as  we  have 
depicted,  still  less  through  the  ascent  of  the  Platonic 
ladder.  Its  teaching  may  be  stated  somewhat  as 
follows : 

1.  By  assuming,  as  Christianity  does,  the  non¬ 
necessity  of  marriage  for  complete  satisfaction  of  the 
will,  it  teaches  by  implication  that  love  is  capable  of 
complete  ^sublimation.^  But  it  is  noteworthy  that  in 
the  typical  transformations  of  love  adopted  by  Chris¬ 
tianity,  the  element  of  physical  ^ministration^  is  never 
lost.  It  is  through  the  washing  of  feet,  the  tendance 
of  the  injured,  the  breaking  of  the  box  of  ointment 
(not  in  any  sense  a  useful  social  service),  the  cup  of 
cold  water,  that  the  repressed  wish  finds  an  outlet. 
As  a  matter  of  history,  the  notable  trend  of  Christian 
energies  into  philanthropic  efforts  during  the  first  few 
centuries  is  the  manifestation  of  a  humanitarian 
passion  sufficiently  profound  to  drain  the  entire  life 
of  affection  into  its  channel;  and  philanthropy  is  not 
Platonism. 


368 


CHEISTIANITY 


/ 


But  it  is  likewise  characteristic  of  Christianity  that 
the  personal  ministration  was  never  allowed  to  shrink 
to  the  level  of  purely  objective  and  useful  service. 
The  cup  of  cold  water  is  given  4n  the  name’  of  some¬ 
thing  believed  to  be  of  cosmic  importance  and  impera¬ 
tive  upon  the  completer  will  of  the  person  served.  The 
situation  is  given  its  own  horizon  of  meaning,  unob¬ 
trusively  in  the  main,  by  a  sign,  by  the  wearing  of  a 
uniform,  or  by  nothing  visible  at  all ;  but  the  purpose 
is  never  relinquished  of  remaking  the  mind  while 
remaking  the  body.  Love,  to  Christianity  as  to  Plato, 
means  the  will  to  confer  immortality.  And  apart  from 
that  intent,  the  legacy  of  ^charity’  imposed  upon  our 
present  social  order  begins  to  appear  as  a  wretched 
substitute  for  justice,  and  a  mockery  of  all  honest  love. 
The  justification,  and  the  only  justification,  of  charity 
is  its  metaphysical  import.  The  future  lies  rather  with 
the  useless  gift,  the  box  of  ointment,  i.e.,  with  the 
increasingly  adequate  sublimation  of  love  in  art,  the 
disinterested,  but  yet  physical,  tendance  of  the  im¬ 
mortal  in  man. 

Philanthropy  and  the  production  of  beauty,  both 
creative  activities,  are  the  two  chief  social  equivalents 
of  sex-love.  But  Christianity  proposes  them  as  com¬ 
plete  equivalents  only  when  they  are  elements  in  its 
own  form  of  the  religious  life.  This  form  is  one  which 
involves  a  concrete  union  of  ‘ministry’  with  worship y 
and  an  alternation  between  the  two.  In  the  usual 
treatment  of  the  subject  by  psychologists  of  religion 
it  is  commonly  assumed  that  the  ministry  is  the  sub¬ 
stantial,  and  worship  the  insubstantial,  idle,  and 


V 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SEX-LOVE  369 

perhaps  harmful  element.  But  without  worship,  both 
philanthrophy  and  art  merge  too  completely  with  the 
public  order.  Worship  is  the  recollection  of  the  spirit 
and  the  renewal  of  that  consciousness  of  meaning 
which  is  to  be  carried  into  the  ministration.  It  is  an 
effort  to  shake  off  the  dust  and  illusion  of  a  partly 
secularized  consciousness,  and  to  recover  a  sense  (not 
a  ^mere  idea’)  of  the  quality  of  value,  of  beauty 
perhaps,  in  the  ultimate  reality,  of  the  world.  It  has 
no  other  object  than  that  same  metaphysical  truth  that 
love  catches  glimpses  of — this  objective  truth  is  the 
primary  bond  of  identity  between  them.  And  if  wor¬ 
ship  attains  its  end,  it  is  the  realization  of  what  love 
through  its  symbols  perpetually  seeks. 

Thus  we  confirm  the  existence  of  an  analogy  of  the 
life  of  religion  with  the  life  of  sex,  which  has  been  much 
dwelt  upon  of  late  as  though  it  were  a  new  discovery. 
But  what  it  means  is  a  very  ancient  insight ;  and  that 
insight  is  not  that  religion  is  nearly  identical  with  sex, 
but  that  sex,  as  it  finds  its  own  meaning,  approaches 
identity  with  religion.  The  same  is  obviously  true  of 
patriotism,  and  only  less  obviously  true  of  ambition 
and  of  every  other  positive  human  impulse;  but  the 
relationship  is  particularly  direct  in  the  case  of  sex- 
love,  first  because  of  its  occasionally  clear  and  con¬ 
fessed  metaphysical  horizon,  and  second  because  of 
the  natural  rhythm  or  alternation  in  its  life,  akin  to 
that  of  religion  just  pointed  out. 

A  right  understanding  of  this  truth  has  distinct 
social  importance  at  present,  when  marriage  as  a 
career  is  increasingly  a  matter  for  deliberate  choice 


370 


CHKISTIANITY 


or  rejection,  and  still  the  absence  of  marriage  is  felt 
as  a  loss  of  selfhood.  The  right  understanding  seems 
to  me  to  be  contained  in  this  simple  proposition:  that 
the  only  thing  about  a  human  will  that  needs  to  he 
satisfied  is  the  whole  will;  and  that  religion  is  the 
satisfaction  of  the  whole  will,  the  will  to  power  in  its 
inclusive  form.  Apart  from  this  fact,  one  can  under¬ 
stand  that  it  might  become  a  social  theorem  claiming 
psychological  support  that  no  substitution  for  the  life 
of  sex  is  possible,  and  that  the  social  evil  or  evils  are 
necessarily  always  with  us.  With  this  fact,  the  con¬ 
sideration  of  any  desirable  social  changes  is  at  once 
freed  from  the  false  and  intrusive  note  of  ‘necessity.’ 
It  may  be  remarked  in  passing  that  particularly  in 
this  matter  what  we  imagine  to  be  necessary  is  the 
chief  agent  in  creating  a  necessity;  and  conversely  a 
presumption  of  non-necessity,  supported  by  a  psycho¬ 
logical  understanding  of  the  principle  of  ‘interpreta¬ 
tion,’  may  well  be  the  first  step  to  emancipation. 

2.  But  the  absolute  whioh  Christianity  prescribes 
in  this  field,  like  its  other  absolutes,  intends  to  live 
with  the  relative,  not  to  displace  it.  The  final  meaning 
of  sex-love  is  one  which  is  to  be  held  within  marriage, 
and  within  all  the  other  relations  of  men  and  women. 
There  are  a  few  religions  (think  of  the  religion  of 
Schopenhauer,  of  the  Shakers,  of  Tolstoy^s  later  days) 
that  have  attempted  to  exclude  the  life  of  sex;  but 
Christianity  is  not  among  them.  The  possibility  of 
sublimation  which  it  asserts  is  such  as  to  set  indi¬ 
viduals  free  to  choose  their  own  destiny,  celibate  or 


CHKISTIANITY  AND  SEX-LOVE 


371 


not,  as  otherwise  they  would  hardly  be  free.  It  is 
certainly  not  such  as  to  prescribe  either  type  of  destiny. 

In  the  relations  of  men  and  women,  what  Chris¬ 
tianity  explicitly  demands  is  not  defined  in  terms  of 
any  given  type  of  behavior;  it  is  the  meaning  it  is 
concerned  with.  It  is  a  question  of  how  one  ‘dooketh 
upon  a  woman.’’  And  the  sense  of  its  legislation 
seems  to  be  this :  that  any  behavior  is  right  behavior 
which  is  consistent  with  looking  upon  her  as  a  person 
having  a  destiny  of  her  own  to  work  out,  a  possibility 
of  immortality  which  depends  in  part  upon  your  own 
attitude.  Any  behavior  is  right  which  is  consistent 
with  this :  no  social  constraint  need  deflect  the  conduct 
of  one  who  sees  always  as  far  as  the  ^‘pilgrim  soul” 
in  the  person  of  his  neighbor.  But  an  attempt  to  bring 
this  meaning  into  the  relationship  will  quickly  exclude 
many  varieties  of  behavior.  There  is  more  room  for 
self-deception  here  than  in  most  other  regions  of 
behavior  in  declaring  freedom  from  particular  social 
rules  for  the  sake  of  an  alleged  general  meaning  or 
spirit.  But  the  meaning  proposed  by  Christianity 
supplies  a  test  with  a  cutting  edge  if  one  is  disposed 
to  use  it.  All  of  love  is  right  when  it  takes  for  its 
meaning  the  giving  of  life,  i.e.,  such  life  as  can  satisfy 
a  human  will. 


CHAPTEE  XLIII 


CHEISTIANITY  AND  AMBITION 

EAELY  Christianity  had  no  overt  hostility  to  the 
regular  business  of  State  life.  It  paid  its  taxes 
and  its  debts,  observed  the  civil  laws,  baptized  centu¬ 
rions  and  magistrates  without  expecting  them  to 
abandon  their  callings,  and  on  occasion  appealed  to 
CsBsar.  As  to  the  public  corvees,  it  proposed  that  if 
any  man,  i.e.,  an  officer,  compel  you  to  go  with  him  one 
mile,  the  proper  spirit  would  pay  a  double  stint. 

Yet  it  would  be  vain  to  read  into  these  occasional 
signs  of  acquiescence  any  adoption  of  the  purposes 
of  the  public  order.  Whatever  are  the  ordinary 
objects  of  ambition, — precedence,  wealth,  office,  public 
power, — they  are  relegated  with  an  almost  contemp¬ 
tuous  gesture  to  the  unimportant:  ‘^for  after  all  these 
things  do  the  G-entiles  seek. 

A  new  ambition,  however,  enters  upon  the  heels  of 
the  old.  The  spiritual  life  of  the  universe  has  its  own 
structure,  its  own  focus,  and  as  it  were  its  own  court 
and  order  of  nobility.  And  for  him  who  would  be  first 
in  that  realm  there  is  a  maxim :  let  him  be  servant  of 
all.  Ambition  is  recognized,  and  in  the  same  breath 
annulled.  It  is  by  lighting  on  the  existing  paradoxes 
of  the  will  (not  by  inventing  them)  that  Christianity 
was  able  to  carry  the  art  of  life  beyond  the  Greek  level. 


CHEISTIANITY  AND  AMBITION  373 

Ambition  faced  with  this  reversal  of  its  natural  aim 
is  compelled  to  undergo  a  metamorphosis  and  acquire 
a  more  stable  meaning. 

But  does  the  change  amount  to  anything  more  than 
translating  into  another  world  the  essential  aims  of 
the  present!  A  longer  aim  may  easily  reverse  a 
present  policy.  Treasures  are  to  be  laid  up,  as  usual, 
but  in  a  safer  place.  One  is  to  become  cosmically 
intelligent  and  therefore  cosmically  prudent.  A  motive 
in  which  one  detects  strands  of  instinctive  self- 
assertion  and  instinctive  fear,  stirred  by  perceiving 
the  perishableness  of  all  finite  goods,  is  to  lead  men 
to  seek  in  an  imperishable  good  the  absolute  security 
of  the  soul.  I  am  not  among  those  who  find  prudence 
an  objectionable  virtue;  nor  who  reject  the  interest  in 
personal  survival  as  unseemly  in  a  mortal.  One  who 
loves  life  at  all  is  forever  becoming  more  deeply 
involved  in  it;  and  the  self-conscious  lover  of  life 
cannot  otherwise  than  will  his  own  continuous  exist¬ 
ence.  To  desire  the  saving  of  one’s  soul  in  this  sense 
is  a  necessary  desire  and  under  these  circumstances, 
it  is  no  high  merit  to  remain  indifferent  regarding 
ways  and  means. 

But  prudence  is  not  the  noblest  of  the  virtues,  nor 
the  last  word  of  Christianity.  Buddhism  had  long  ago 
detected  the  moral  danger  of  an  indulgent  heaven- 
quest,  and  had  sought  to  make  ambition  commit 

1  A  fact  which  is  not  altered  by  the  results  of  any  questionnaire, 
especially  of  a  questionnaire  circulated  among  the  more  sophisticated 
and  self -challenging  members  of  the  community,  as  in  the  enquiry  by 
Professor  James  H.  Leuba,  reported  in  “The  Belief  in  God  and 
Immortality.  ’ ' 


374 


CHRISTIANITY 


suicide  in  a  selflessness  withont  desire.  It  sought 
dispassion;  and  it,  sought  it  by  way  of  compassion, 
because  thereby  the  root  of  individuality  was  best 
killed.  But  - 1.  is  no  easy  task  to  destroy  in  oneself  all 
desire,  or  all  the  skandhas  that  attach  to  individual 
existence;  and  if  one  enters  upon  and  persists  in  this 
noble  and  arduous  ^  eightfold  path,  ^  it  must  be  through 
j  some  powerful  impulsion.  In  truth,  ambition  is  the 
\  essence  of  religion.  There  is  always  possible  to  men 
a  life  of  least  resistance,  taking  oneself  and  the  world 
as  one  finds  them,  accepting  the  horizon  of  nature.  If 
one  repudiates  this  and  takes  upon  himself  the  pains 
of  a  Buddha,  it  is  through  some  deep-laid  passion, 
which  the  goal  of  Buddhism,  as  defined  to  our  Western 
ears,  hardly  explains.  If  religion  destroys  ambition, 
it  destroys  itself. 

The  solution  of  Christianity  perceives  this  prin- 
r ciple.  It  recognizes  as  does  Buddhism  the  faultiness 
of  heaven-seeking;  but  it  seeks  to  remedy  that  fault 
by  proceeding  in  the  opposite  direction, — ^by  carrying 
.  ambition  to  the  limit  of  its  own  meaning,  giving  a  final 
\  answer  to  the  question,  What  does  ambition  want? 

^  The  dialectic  of  experience  has  shown  us  from  many 
angles  how  the  quest  for  power  tends  to  revise  its  aim ; 
how  the  pursuit  of  power-over  becomes  the  pursuit  of 
power-for.  As  power  must  have  its  object,  it  is  so  far 
dependent  upon  the  existence  of  the  object,  and  must 
seek  its  welfare.  At  the  limit,  the  exercise  of  power 
is  indistinguishable  from  service;  it  consists  in  giving 
or  in  adding  to  the  being  of  another.  Christianity 
1  places  itself  at  this  point  and  defines,  as  the  goal  of 


CHEISTIANITY  AND  AMBITION 


375 


the  transformation  of  ambition,  the  conferring  ‘-of 
spiritual  life.  The  compassion  which  in  Buddhism  is 
the  corrective  of  the  self-centered  bent  of  the  will  is 
present  here  also,  hut  with  a  different  mes^ning.  The 
compassion  of  Buddha  looks  on  the  world  of  men  as 
caught  in  the  error  of  individuality  and  its  consequent 
suffering,  and  in  releasing  them  wins  its  own  release. 
The  compassion  of  Christianity  looks  on  a  world  of\ 
men  as  lacking  individuality  and  hence  unable  to  meet 
suffering,  and  in  confirming  their  selfhood  confirms 
its  own. 

Ambition  in  this  form  is  the  most  characteristic^ 
product  of  Christianity  in  the  field  of  behavior.  It 
is  the  passion  for  the  historic  spread  of  the  new  com¬ 
munity,  or  in  more  personal  form,  the  passion  for 
souls.  Nothing  is  more  dominant  in  the  early  history 
of  this  cult  than  the  willingness  to  suffer,  to  he 
despised,  to  endure  all  things,  if  by  any  means  some 
could  be  persuaded  to  become  members  of  the  com¬ 
munity,  the  kingdom  of  heaven  in  the  guise  of  a 
militant  church  on  earth. 

In  this  transformation,  ambition  does  not  lose  the^ 
other-worldly  sweep  of  the  transcendental  prudence 
we  were  speaking  of.  It  is  still  laying  hold  on  that 
other  world,  but  with  more  radical  power  than  is 
implied  in  simply  attaining  future  status  there.  It  is 
indeed  far  more  ambitious.  It  lays  hold  on  that  world 
with  the  intent  of  so  much  present  mastery  of  its 
quality  and  principle  as  to  weave  them  into  the  fabric 
of  human  history. 


This  passion  for  souls  we  have  described  as  the  final 


376 


CHKISTIANITY 


transformation  of  the  ambition  of  the  public  order; 
but  it  is  evidently  more  than  that.  It  is  the  same  form 
of  will  as  that  which  gave  the  final  meaning  to  human 
love,  the  will  to  confer  immortal  life.  It  is  likewise  the 
last  transformation  of  pugnacity,  the  will  to  displace 
evil  with  good.  It  is,  in  truth,  the  point  in  which  the 
meanings  of  all  instincts  converge.  It  is  the  positive 
meaning  given  by  Christianity  to  the  human  will  as 
a  whole.  ‘Saving  one’s  soul,’  so  far  as  psychology  can 
deal  with  the  matter,  is  the  achieving  of  this  passion. 
‘Conversion,’  or  the  second-birth,  means  the  trans¬ 
lation  of  natural  impulses  into  terms  of  this  form  of 
the  will  to  power.  It  is  this  change  which  gave  Words¬ 
worth  his  maturity  in  that  moment  when  he  became  a 
‘dedicated  spirit.’  It  is  visible,  in  more  or  less  veiled 
form,  in  the  final  insights  of  Goethe’s  Faust,  of 
Browning’s  Paracelsus.  But  it  is  in  more  literal  and 
potent  fashion  the  force  behind  the  careers  of  Jesus 
and  Paul,  and,  apart  from  their  unfinished  meta¬ 
physics,  of  Buddha  and  of  Socrates.  And  it  is  more 
or  less  obscurely  the  motive  of  all  our  more  honorafble 
efforts  in  education,  social  reform,  and  other  expres¬ 
sions  of  parental  instinct. 

The  fact  that  these  several  instincts  come  together 
in  this  meaning  is  circumstantial  evidence  that  the 
meaning  is  a  true  interpretation  and  final  for  them  all. 
And  as  tested  by  experience,  it  has  been  a  successful 
interpretation.  It  has  become  for  many  men  an 
absorbing  and  satisfying  purpose.  And  from  the 
standpoint  of  those  who  look  on  and  estimate  the 
results  in  terms  of  character,  there  is  little  disposition 


CHEISTIANITY  AND  AMBITION  377 

to  question  that  in  those  men  who  have  most  embodied 
this  passion  human  nature  has  touched  its  highest 
points. 

But  unless  the  direction  of  this  passion  had  been 
concrete  and  historical,  it  would  not  have  been  success¬ 
ful  in  winning  ascendency  in  a  human  will.  It  is 
successful  only  because  and  so  far  as  it  retains  all  that 
respect  for  the  circumstances  of  the  physical  and 
social  being  that  we  saw  to  be  characteristic  of  atfec- 
tion  and  of  pugnacity.  The  community  with  which  it 
concerns  itself  is  never  merely  an  invisible  church  of 
all  the  loyal,  such  as  Professor  Boyce  had  in  mind  as 
the  ^‘beloved  community.’’  It  is  this;  but  it  is  also  an 
institution  among  institutions,  having  its  own  work 
in  the  world  and  its  own  aims.  It  is  among  other 
institutions  somewhat  as  the  State  is  among  them, 
while  in  its  purposes  it  includes  them  and  reflects  upon 
all  of  them.  Its  purpose  is  to  hold  out  precisely  this 
interpretation  of  their  wills  to  all  men  as  being  the 
^  adequate  interpretation;  to  bring  all  plans  and  goods 
into  subordination  to  this;  and  thus,  while  nominally 
undermining  all  other  institutions,  to  pave  the  way  for 
the  most  subtle  of  common  understandings,  the  inter¬ 
racial  and  international  understandings  which  are 
crystallizing  in  the  shape  of  a  world  culture  and  an 
international  law.  Thus  Christianity  becomes  a  cor¬ 
porate  body  having  an  ambition  of  its  own :  it  becomes 
a  propaganda,  breaks  across  the  provincial  boundaries 
of  its  origin,  and  aspires  to  universality.  Like  Bud¬ 
dhism  it  is  by  its  own  principle  a  missionary  religion. 
And  if  by  being  Hrue’  we  mean  among  other  things 


378 


CHKISTIANITY 


being  awake  to  the  nature  of  one’s  business  in  this 
world,  we  may  say  that  no  religion  is  a  true  religion 
which  does  not  in  this  way  aspire  to  be  corporate  and 
universal. 

For  the  most  part,  it  is  the  Catholic  Church,  rather 
than  the  Protestant  Church,  which  has  kept  to  the 
concrete  view  of  its  undertaking:  it  has  more  consist¬ 
ently  approached  the  soul  through  its  physical  and 
social  entanglements.  Protestantism  has  been  more 
intellectual  and  abstract.  But  thefe  are  not  a  few  men 
in  whom  both  types  are  united,  as  in  the  work  of 
Livingstone,  or  in  that  of  Dr.  Crenfell,  in  whom  the 
medical  mission  and  the  community  mission  are 
combined.  All  tendencies  at  present  make  for  this 
concreter  conception  of  the  undertaking  in  which,  when 
it  completely  understands  itself,  all  human  ambition 
culminates. 


CHAPTEE  XLIV 


THE  CRUX  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

IT  must  be  said,  however,  that  the  growing  concrete¬ 
ness  in  the  form  of  missionary  effort  among 
Protestants  is  not  due  wholly  to  a  deepening  percep¬ 
tion  of  the  meaning  of  the  enterprise.  It  is  due  in  part 
to  a  sort  of  embarrassment  in  the  intellectual  preach¬ 
ing  of  religion  as  propaganda.  The  mission  begins 
to  be  regarded  rather  as  an  educational  or  philan¬ 
thropic  than  as  a  religious  undertaking,  as  it  were  a 
gift  of  culture,  sustained  mainly  by  the  desire  to  be 
serviceable  in  a  pioneering  way.  The  attitude  of  the 
prophet  or  evangelist,  keenly  conscious  of  the  vital 
import  of  religious  differences,  is  felt  to  be  less  natural 
of  late,  as  if  the  human  spirit  had  entered  upon  a  new 
phase  of  self-consciousness. 

The  causes  of  this  change  are  many,  but  among  them 
I  believe  we  may  recognize  an  element  of  diffidence  in 
assuming  the  role  of  the  propagator  of  religion,  as  if 
that  role  were  somehow  presumptuous.  And  is  not 
this  the  case  ? 

Is  it  not  true  that  this  entire  interpretation  of 
instinct  as  a  will  to  power,  and  of  the  will  to  power 
as  a  will  to  save  souls,  or  to  re-create  or  reform  or 
educate  mankind,  has  in  it  more  than  a  trace  of  pre¬ 
sumption?  What  it  amounts  to  seems  to  be  this,  that 


CHKISTIANITY 


380 

if  the  complete  salvation  of  an  individual  will  requires 
.  the  transformation  of  all  its  instincts  into  the  will  to 
!  save  others,  we  must  be  saved  hy  saving;  and  it  is  very 
doubtful  whether  in  our  unsaved  condition  we  have 
any  right  to  suppose  ourselves  competent  to  save.  We 
might  as  well  assume  the  right  to  forgive  sins.  For 
when  in  our  current  criticism  we  recognize  sin,  and 
when  we  subordinate  this  criticism  (as  we  thought  we 
should)  to  a  spirit  of  creative  justice,  what  is  this  but 
an  attempt  to  displace  a  will  defined  by  us  as  evil  by 
a  good  will  likewise  of  our  own  definition?  But  can 
we  be  certain  either  that  that  evil  is  really  evil,  or  that 
which  seems  good  to  us  is  absolutely  good? 

An  attitude  in  which  one  detects  .himself  subtly 
usurping  the  functions  of  Deity,  while  wholly  vigorous 

I 

and  unblushing  in  the  activities  of  an  earlier  genera- 
•  tion,  has  become  all  but  impossible  to  a  large  part  of 
our  contemporary  self-consciousness.  There  is  an 
evident  disinclination  to  walk  out  very  far  on  any 
venture  of  moral  judgment,  through  a  sense  that  this 
judgment  is  most  likely  to  mislead  when  it  is  most 
conscious.  There  is  a  preference  to  acknowledge  quite 
frankly  the  tendencies  of  the  less  ethically  effortful 
self,  to  confess  one’s  egoisms,  one’s  ambitions,  one’s 
enjoyment  of  praise,  to  let  one’s  tempers,  dislikes  and 
affections  have  their  say,  because  after  all  one  must 
be  sincere  and  what  one  is  does  the  talking  in  any  case. 
I  In  all  speculations  about  what  human  beings  finally 
i  want,  our  formulae  are  likely  to  do  violence  to  hidden 
impulses  while  they  satisfy  the  obvious  ones.  And 
this  moral  self-propagation  which  we  have  reached  as 


THE  CKUX  OF  CHEISTIANITY 


381 


the  best  meaning  of  the  will  seems  to  do  violence  to  an 
intuitive  hesitation  to  regard  one’s  moral  self  as  ever  3 
quite  worthy  of  being  propagated. 

We  have  not,  however,  been  asserting  that  our  ideal 
is  practicable ;  we  have  been  asserting  that  it  is  what 
Christianity  demands,  and  that  if  it  could  be  attained 
it  would  satisfy  the  will.  The  difficulty  we  have  just 
encountered  affords  additional  evidence  that  our 
interpretation  of  Christian  requirements  is  the  true 
one.  For  original  Christianity  encountered  precisely 
the  same  criticism  of  its  aims,  namely,  that  they  are 
presumptuous.  Was  it  not  this  very  charge  that  led 
to  the  crucifixion,  and  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
judges  perhaps  justly  so?  For  did  not  this  man  pro¬ 
fess  to  forgive  sins,  and  in  other  ways  make  himself 
equal  with  God?  And  did  he  not  hand  over  the  keys 
of  heaven  and  hell  to  his  followers?  He  professed  to 
save  others,  and  it  was  a  pointed  gibe,  regarded  as 
equivalent  to  a  refutation,  that  he  could  not  save 
himself.  In  political  translation,  the  offence  of  the 
man  was  in  his  pretended  kingship,  the  true  substance 
of  which  was  his  self-asserted  mastery  over  the  souls 
of  men.  Historically  speaking,  the  crux  of  Christianity*^ 
is  its  element  of  presumption. 

For  the  same  reason  Christianity  aroused  the 
antagonism  of  the  Eoman  State,  hospitable  to  nearly 
every  foreign  cult.  For  the  Christian  community 
regarded  itself  in  a  wholly  unique  and  arrogant  light : 
it  presumed  to  provide  a  salvation  which  made  salva¬ 
tion  in  the  State  unnecessary,  and  supreme  devotion 
to  the  State  impossible.  It  claimed  to  be  a  kingdom 


382 


CHKISTIANITY 


in  which  the  whole  world  could,  and  eventually  would, 
find  refuge..  It  compelled  choices,  and  announced  a 
competition  for  allegiance,  whereas  other  religions 
were  content  with  combined  loyalties.  In  brief,  it 
assumed  to  be  right,  to  possess  the  Way;  and  the 
pretense  of  divine  right  implied  in  its  passion  for  souls 
was  as  little  palatable  to  Rome  as  it  is  to  the  ethical 
diffidence  of  the  present  hour. 

There  would  be  little  or  no  fault  to  find  with  the 
"standard  set  up  by  Christianity,  if  it  were  only  re¬ 
served  from  being  professed  and  administered  by 
human  beings.  Religion  can  hardly  do  less,  perhaps, 
than  demand  the  complete  transformation  of  instinct; 
and  the  definition  of  the  goal  of  human  nature  is  not 
refuted  by  the  feeling  that  no  human  being  is  quite 
qualified  to  adopt  it.  And  further  (if  we  are  right) 
it  is  not  Christianity  alone,  but  the  dialectic  of  our  o^vn 
experience,  that  leads  to  the  requirement  we  have 
stated.  The  only  thing  we  can  justly  demand  of 
Christianity,  if  it  makes  itself  responsible  for  this 
ideal,  is  an  answer  to  the  question,  How  is  this 
transformation  possible! 


CHAPTER  XLV 


THE  THEORY  OP  PARTICIPATION 
SAGE  has  identified  the  word  Christianity  with 


a  type  of  disposition, — one  whose  main  ingre¬ 
dient  is  a  sentiment  of  human  charity,  embedded  in  a 
metaphysical  faith  and  hope.  And  when  scholars 
began  to  address  themselves  to  the  question.  What  is 
the  essence  of  Christianity!  many  of  them  accepted 
this  usage  and  assumed  that  the  essence  in  question 
is  to  be  sought  in  some  standard  for  human  character 
such  as  we  have  been  considering. 

But  if  this  assumption  were  true  it  would  be  hard 
to  find  a  sufficient  reason  why  the  ideal  in  question 
should  be  called  by  the  special  name  of  Christianity. 
For  quite  apart  from  the  historic  fact  that  many 
elements  of  the  Christian  ideal  have  been  found  in 
other  places  and  traditions,  there  is  no  good  reason 
why  the  ideal  in  its  general  form  should  not  become 
a  common  possession  of  psychology.  So  far  as  it  is 
the  outcome  of  the  dialectic  of  experience,  which  is 
the  same  everywhere,  it  must  in  time  become  such 
a  common  possession,  enriched  indeed  by  the 
various  historic  modes  of  approach  and  expression, 
but  the  better  domesticated  in  the  human  family  for 


384 


CHKISTIANITY 


being,  in  substance,  free  from  any  special  channel  of 
communication/ 

It  is  not  in  any  set  of  moral  precepts,  nor  in  any 
view  of  the  transformation  of  instinct,  that  the  essence 
of  Christianity  is  to  be  found,  but  rather  in  its  answer 
to  the  question.  How  is  this  transformation  possible? 
Or,  to  put  the  question  in  Kantian  form.  How  is 
ethical  experience  possible?  Every  religion  makes 
its  demands;  but  its  special  obligation,  as  a  religion, 
is  to  show  how  these  demands  may  he  met.  The 
religion  is  to  be  identified  not  by  its  ethics  but  by  its 
theory  of  salvation  and  by  its  actual  provision  for 
saving  human  individuals  in  their  historic  context. 

The  necessity  for  such  a  theory  lies  in  the  fact  that, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  demands  themselves  involve  a 
practical  dilemma.  This  dilemma,  the  fundamental 
problem  of  Christianity,  we  may  restate  somewhat 
formally  as  follows.  We  cannot  satisfy  our  wills,  nor 
the  demands  upon  them,  without  adopting  the  attitude 
of  creative  artist  toward  our  milieu.  This  attitude, 
however,  for  human  beings,  is  presumption.  It  is  such 
an  attitude  as  only  a  divine  being  would  be  fully 
justified  in  taking.  As  for  us,  no  demand  could  be 
more  reasonable  than  that  we  should  first  cast  the  beam 

1  It  has  been  said,  as  by  Professor  G.  B.  Foster,  that  the  characteristic 
thing  about  Christianity  is  not  its  stateable  ideal,  but  the  embodiment 
of  this  ideal  in  a  person.  And  it  i^  certainly  true  that  such  embodiment 
makes  any  type  of  disposition  more  available  and  impressive  than  any 
possible  theoretical  statement  could  be.  But  what  this  personality  means 
to  men  is  in  any  ease  a  universal,  and  one  which  the  founder  of  Chris¬ 
tianity  tried  to  state  as  well  as  to  exemplify;  and  any  such  universal 
meaning  must  be  capable  of  theoretic  statement  and  verification  and  so, 
in  the  end,  be  detached  from  the  accident  of  its  historic  emergence. 


THE  THEOKY  OF  PARTICIPATION  385 

out  of  our  own  eye,  before  undertaking  to  give  light  to 
others.  But  the  difficulty  is  that  we  can  only  get  rid  of 
the  beam  through  this  very  undertaking.  To  be  dis¬ 
posed  to  save  others,  we  must  first  be  saved  ourselves ; 
yet  to  be  saved  ourselves  we  must  be  disposed  to  save 
others.  On  the  ground  of  the  moral  order  alone  there 
is  no  way  out  of  this  circle. 

But  Christianity  presses  a  way  out.  It  relieves  the 
individual  at  once  of  the  burden  of  supposing  that  it 
is  through  any  merit  or  power  of  his  own  that  he  can 
save  others ;  the  power  is  conferred  upon  him  by  way 
of  a  loan.  It  is  nothing  inherent  in  us  that  is  to  do 
the  work,  but  something  in  which  we  participate. 
What  this  means  may  appear  through  analogies  from 
the  field  of  knowledge.  t 

One  who  knows  an  object  becomes  to  some  degree  a 
partaker  in  the  qualities  of  the  object.  Knowledge  has 
for  its  special  business  the  reaching  across  from  self 
to  what  is  not-self,  and  making  that  not-self,  so  far 
as  its  qualities  can  be  appreciated,  an  appurtenance 
of  the  self.  What  I  know  of  any  real  object  is  never 
the  object  in  full,  but  a  selection  of  my  own:  I  know 
as  much  of  it  as  I  can  Hake  in,^ — the  phrase  is  accurate. 
Any  quality  which  I  appreciate  enough  to  remember 
and  name  has  already  begun  to  be  a  permanent  source 
of  change  in  me ;  but  even  if  I  merely  gaze  on  an  object, 
all  that  I  succeed  in  taking  in  is  at  that  moment  an 
element  in  my  being.  What  we  call  an  Hdea’  is  a 
quality  of  an  object  in  so  far  as  it  has  become  a 
property  of  a  self.  Participation  of  this  kind‘^  is  par- 

2  In  the  Platonic  theory  of  participation,  it  is  the  object  that  par¬ 
ticipates  in  the  ideas.  According  to  the  view  here  proposed  it  is  the 


386 


CHEISTIANITY 


ticularly  natural  and  direct  in  the  case  of  personal 
qualities  and  values.  I  may  witness  an  heroic  deed 
and  be  no  hero  nor  become  one :  but  if  I  appreciate 
its  heroism  I  become  at  least  momentarily  a  partaker 
of  its  quality.  The  psychology  of  masses  and  of 
political  movements  frequently  exhibits  this  principle, 
which  is  more  fundamental  than  that  of  imitation. 
Mazzini  gave  Italy  an  army  of  heroes ;  but  their  valor 
was  not  at  first  an  intrinsic  quality  of  themselves.  It 
was  a  quality  of  their  leader,  and  became  theirs 
through  their  knowledge  of  him.  With  another  leader 
it  might  well  have  remained  not  alone  latent,  but  non¬ 
existent.  Much  of  the  hope  of  democracy  lies  in  the 

3 

fact  that  no  set  of  psychological  tests  can  ever  tell 
what  any  man  or  body  of  men  is  capable  of.  All  men 
rise  to  the  level  of  their  leaders  in  so  far  as  they  under¬ 
stand  them  and  believe  in  them.^ 

Through  this  participation  of  the  self  in  its  object 
there  arises  the  paradox  that  the  same  act  of  appre¬ 
ciation  which  confers  greatness  upon  a  self  reveals  to 
that  self  its  habitual  littleness.  It  was  Socrates  who 
burned  into  our  memories  the  truth  that  the  beginning 
of  wisdom  may  be  the  knowledge  of  our  ignorance. 

self  which  through  the  idea  participates  in  the  object,  without  enquiring 
whether  the  object  itself  has  an  original  or  a  communicated  being. 
Ideas  in  this  sense  are  not  conceived  as  eternal  patterns  but  as  living 
processes  of  osmosis  between  self  and  not-self. 

3  It  is  this  factor  of  belief,  with  the  implied  act  of  affirmation,  that 
marks  the  distinction  between  the  effect  of  knowing  the  good  and 
knowing  the  evil  qualities  of  things.  There  is  a  degree  of  participation 
involved  in  the  knowledge  of  evil,  even  for  scientific  purposes.  But 
the  non-consent  that  goes  with  such  knowledge,  if  deep  enough  to  remain 
in  subconsciousness  with  it,  limits  the  area  of  its  remaking  of  the  self. 


THE  THEORY  OF  PARTICIPATION  387 

Blit  in  another  form  this  same  truth  has  been  the 
common  possession  of  all  the  mystics.  For  their 
insistence  upon  the  inadequacy  of  concepts  and  defini¬ 
tions  is  another  way  of  saying  that  a  true  knowledge 
of  reality  makes  all  prior  ideas  appear  as  so  many 
limitations  or  negations.  Likewise  in  the  world  of 
the  will:  if  one  finds  appreciates  anything  holy 
in  the  world,  the  participation  in  that  holiness  is  at 
the  same  time  a  destruction  of  moral  conceit.  And 
this,  I  believe,  explains  the  emphasis  of  Christianity 
upon  humility.  Humility  is  not  a  virtue;  but  it  is  a 
condition  without  which  the  kind  of  virtue  demanded 
by  Christianity  is  not  possible :  it  is  an  infallible  result  ^ 
of  perceiving  in  any  adequate  way  what  kind  of  will  it 
is  that  is  needed  to  do  a  man’s  work  in  the  world.  It 
is  a  result  of  beginning  to  participate  in  that  will. 

Now  to  possess  goodness  in  this  participatory 
fashion  is  not  to  be  good,  but  only  to  begin  being  good. 
But  as  long  as  the  appreciation  is  alive  (and  this  is 
vital  to  the  whole  matter)  the  incipient  possession  of 
goodness  may  do  the  work  of  goodness  itself.  What 
the  man  sees  becomes  the  working  part  of  the  man. 
This  principle  explains  and  justifies  the  tendency 
which  we  found  general  in  society  of  taking  men  on 
the  basis  of  their  hopes  rather  than  of  their  achieve¬ 
ments  :  what  men  reach  Imt  to  will  do  some  part  of  its 
proper  work  through  them,  if  not  by  them.  This  is 
especially  true  of  those  who  labor,  as  poets  do,  to  bring 
to  earth  an  insight  which  is  still  marginal  and  vague 
to  themselves.  The  men  who  dimly  perceived 
‘^Liberty,  Equality,  Fraternity,”  had  their  effect  in 


388 


CHRISTIANITY 


spite  of  the  haziness  of  their  vision:  this  effect  was 
certainly  not  dne  to  the  haze,  nor  much  helped  by  it, 
but  neither  was  it  delayed  until  their  insight  was 
perfectly  defined.  There  is  some  ground  for  thinking 
that  no  idea  is  wholly  definite  until  it  is  dead.  Those 
books  and  writers  appear  greatest  to  us  who  make 
connections  with  the  surmises  of  our  minds,  because 
they  have  been  able  to  give  substance  to  the  surmises 
of  their  own:  we  can  only  on  this  ground  understand 
the  effect,  not  alone  of  most  of  the  great  s.eers  and  of 
most  of  the  bibles,  but  of  many  a  writer  within  the 
period  of  the  world’s  ‘‘enlightenment,”  of  Bunyan, 
of  Locke,  of  Kant,  of  William  James.  In  this  there  is 
no  glorification  of  an  obscure  idea  because  it  is 
obscure;  for  the  only  justification  any  idea  can  have 
is  that  it  makes  connection  with  objects  as  they  are. 
But  it  suggests  that  waiting  for  finished  neatness  may 
have  something  unduly  cautious  about  it.  The  appre¬ 
ciations  we  have  should  begin  their  active  march  when 
those  appreciations  arise  as  convictions  within  the 
mind.  There  is  an  element  of  vanity  in  waiting  until 
we  think  we  are  all  that  we  admire  before  we  allow 
ourselves  to  communicate  our  admiration.  To  know 
that  we  work  less  through  what  we  are  than  through 
what  we  worship  is  a  great  economy  of  pride. 

And  it  is  also  an  economy  of  time.  For  to  wait  for 
fitness  would  mean  in  most  cases  to  wait  till  the  end 
of  eternity.  The  only  indispensable  fitness  is  the 
capacity  for  appreciating  or  reverencing  the  object — 
as  the  greatness  of  a  Boswell  or  a  Tolstoy  lies  less  in 
personal  force  than  in  what  we  are  pleased  to  call 


THE  THEORY  OF  PARTICIPATION  389 

immense  ^‘objectivity^’ — and  this  capacity  for  rever¬ 
ence  is  often  greatest  in  the  newest  or  remotest 
initiate.  This  is  at  least  part  of  the  meaning  of  the” 
doctrine  of  the  Incarnation.  The  perfect  dwells  in 
the  imperfect  now,  in  so  far  as  the  imperfect  takes  the 
perfect  for  an  object,  and  it  does  now  the  work  of  the 
perfect. 

Thus,  the  fact  of  p^ticipation  makes  it  possible  to 
act  as  gods  without  presumption.  With  every  element 
of  self-assertion  in  the  work  of  education,  or  propa¬ 
gating  a  national  type  of  mind,  or  laboring  for  any 
causes  such  as  involve  persuading  men,  or  loyally 
holding  to  instead  of  turning  away  from  someone 
whose  fault  has  become  patent,  or  with  whatever  other 
form  of  saving  human  nature,  comes  in  the  same  in¬ 
stant  its  antidote;  “Yet  not  I,  but  whatever  I  have 
found  visibly  divine  in  the  world,  worketh  in  me.”  If 
the  reader  has  found  himself  irked  by  our  constant 
(and  admittedly  faulty)  use  of  the  phrase  ‘will  to 
power,’  the  sting  of  that  term  is  now  finally  drawm 
There  is  power  in  the  world,  and  such  power  as  I  must 
wield  if  I  am  to  find  what  I  mean  by  living;  but  that 
power,  even  if  it  resides  in  me  for  a  moment,  is  very 
little  mine.  Far  from  a  testimony  to  my  ability  if  I 
accomplish  something  with  it,  it  is  a  comment  on  my 
culpable  lack  of  faith  if  I  fail  to  work  miracles  with  it. 

But  while  this  principle  furnishes  a  partiah  answer 
to  our  question.  How  is  this  transformation  possible? 
it  is  not  a  complete  answer.  For  to  participate  in  the 
nature  of  God,  it  is,  by  this  principle,  first  necessary 


/ 


390 


CHKISTIANITY 


to  see  God.  And  it  is  only  those  who  are  already  pure 
in  heart  that  can  see  God.  Participation  would  remove 
imperfection,  or  begin  the  removal;  but  the  imper¬ 
fection  obscures  my  vision,  and  so  bars  effective  par- 
Jticipation. 

This  dilemma  is  not  one  that  we  can  banish  by 
ignoring  it,  or  living  complacently  with  it  in  our 
ordinary  will-to-muddle-through.  We  have  said  that 
ambition  is  the  stuff  of  which  religion  is  made;  it  is, 
,  if  you  like,  the  instinct  to  do  one’s  living  well.  It  is 
characteristic  of  animal  life  to  live  in  accommodations, 
and  piece  out  by  Vitality’  the  inconsistencies  of  ideas : 
it  is  characteristic  of  religion  to  seek  out  all  rankling 
roots  of  dissatisfaction  and  clash  of  meaning,  to  drive 
latent  problems  out  from  cover  rather  than  cloak  them, 
to  declare  relentless  hostility  to  our  animal  and  ‘vital’ 
I  ease.*^  It  is  religion  that  compels  us  to  face  this  logical 
impasse. 

Nor  can  we  escape  the  difficulty  by  placing  the  vision 
of  God,  as  Plato  does,  at  the  end  of  a  long  ascent  in 
the  dialectic  ladder,  with  a  fine  gradation  in  the  stages 
of  the  journey.  For  at  each  stage  the  dilemma,  in 

4  One  of  the  most  unfortunate  results  of  letting  ‘  life  ’  take  care  of 
this  particular  puzzle  is  the  adoption  of  a  properly  humble  attitude 
toward  all  enterprises  which  might  imply  faith  in  one’s  own  type  of 
mind,  i.e.,  faith  in  one’s  faith.  This  type  of  humility  is  seldom  socially 
obnoxious,  because  it  is  for  the  most  part  amiable ;  it  is  not  often 
observed  that  by  its  irresponsibility  it  is  the  dry  rot  of  all  democracy. 
When  it  appears  in  excess,  we  recognize  in  Uriah  Heep  the  epitome  of 
all  that  Nietzsche  properly  hates,  and  mankind  with  him.  But  whether 
or  not  in  excess,  the  moral  and  logical  fault  is  the  same.  To  take 
humility  as  the  essence  of  Christianity  is  to  mistake  its  symptom  for  its 
essence,  and  to  fancy  that  because  the  poor  in  spirit  are  blessed,  one  can 
become  poor  in  spirit  at  will.  The  true  relation  of  things  is  that  the 


THE  THEORY  OF  PARTICIPATION 


391 


principle,  recurs.  The  next  step  in  approaching  the 
vision  of  the  Good,  wherever  yon  now  stand,  requires 
as  its  precondition  that  very  purity  which  is  its  own 
natural  result,  and  which  the  relatively  impure  will 
cannot  put  on  for  itself.  The  question  is  the  ancient 
one.  How  can  a  man  know  God? 

pure  in  heart  catch  a  glimpse  of  God,  and  they  who  see  God  become 
humble.  All  other  humility  is  hypocrisy.  And  the  problem  then  recurs, 
How  can  the  imperfect  mind  see  God?  This  problem  is  not  escaped  by 
letting  it  heal  over. 


CHAPTER  XLYI 


THE  DIVINE  AGGRESSION 

Let  me  resume  the  logic  of  our  situation  in  terms 
of  an  experience  common  in  principle.  In  recent 
years  playwrights  have  once  more  ventured  to  bring 
upon  the  stage  the  miracle-working  divine  character; 
and  the  reception  accorded  such  plays  as  ^‘The  Servant 
in  the  House/ ^  ^‘The  Passing  of  the  Third  Floor 
Back/’  shows  that  human  nature  is  ready  to  recognize 
and  respond  to  its  natural  destiny.  What  one  sees 
there  one  admits  without  parley  as  the  strongest  thing 
in  the  world;  and  further,  in  so  far  as  one  is  moved 
by  it,  one  is  for  the  moment  participating  in  that  type 
of  power.  Suppose  that  the  conviction  were  deep 
enough  to  disarm  the  habitual  playgoer’s  defences, 
and  to  persist  into  the  life  of  the  next  day.  It  would 
meet  certain  obstacles  which  the  playwright  had  not 
included  in  the  difficulties,  let  us  say,  of  the  Servant 
in  the  House.  For  in  the  first  place  this  Servant  is 
steadily  in  the  right,  and  knows  himself  for  what  he 
is ;  but  when  criticism  must  both  be  given  and  received, 
the  role  of  the  divine  can  with  difficulty  be  sustained. 
This  is  one  of  the  embarrassments  I  should  encounter. 

But  looking  deeper,  I  should  find  the  fundamental 
difficulty  to  be  this :  that  I  do  not,  as  a  fact,  care  enough 
for  either  God  or  men  to  play  this  part  with  success. 


T^E  DIVINE  AGGRESSION 


393 


I  certainly  do  not  see  them  in  a  light  that  compels  my 
complete  affection.  This  is  due  to  the  fact  that,  being 
what  I  am,  I  find  in  my  dealings  with  the  world 
hindrance,  deprivation,  pain,  to  an  extent  that  leaves 
me  highly  unreconciled  and  at  heart  protesting.  Being 
what  I  am,  I  say, — because  it  may  well  be  that  if  my 
instincts  were  completely  transformed  I  should  judge 
things  differently.  If  I  could  love  God,  I  might  over¬ 
come  or  understand  deprivation  and  suffering;  and 
if  I  could  accept  deprivation  and  suffering  I  might 
love  God.  But  as  it  is,  I  remain  a  critic  of  the  divine 
economy  and  hence  of  God  himself;  and  the  vision 
that  might  transform  me  is  closed  to  me.  It,  is  the 
unresolved  problem  of  evil  that  stands  in  the  way  of 
the  saving  of  my  soul.  I  am  unable  to  see  the  divine 
as  an  object  of  admiration,  not  to  say  adoration.  God, 
if  there  is  a  God,  is  a  blunderer,  or  a  malicious  play- 
maker,  or  finite  and  helpless,  or  callous,  or  blind. 
Such  is  the  summary  value- judgment  that  without 
consulting  any  deliberate  thought  of  mine  my  instincts, 
in  their  present  state,  are  incessantly  reaffirming. 

And  apart  from  what  our  lips  or  our  theories  tell  us, 
this  is  perhaps  the  commonest  of  commonplace  atti¬ 
tudes  toward  the  universe.  The  socialized  human 
being  looks  with  a  natural  skepticism  upon  any  propo¬ 
sition  to  the  effect  that  there  is  a  wholly  good  ^  God. 
So  far  as  we  can  see  into  the  structure  of  the  world,  it 
is  a  place  in  which  our  instincts  are  not  alone  unsat¬ 
isfied,  but  unsatisfiable.  If  religion  has  been  blind  to 
this  situation,  religion  might  as  well  quit  the  stage. 


394 


CHKISTIANITY 


But  religion  is  not  blind  to  this  situation;  it  is  the 
first  to  announce  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  world 
of  men  or  nature,  as  we  naturally  see  it,  that  can 
justly  claim  a  complete  allegiance.  It  sides  completely 
with  our  civilized  skepticism  on  this  point;  and  it  not 
only  admits,  but  asserts,  that  of  ourselves  we  cannot 
see  things  in  any  other  way.  It  adds,  simply,  that 
what  we  cannot  do  for  ourselves  another  must  do  for 
us;  our  reconciliation  with  reality  must  be  brought 
to  us  from  outside.  The  salvation  of  a  soul  requires 
a  divine  intervention. 


II 

The  idea  of  salvation  from  outside  is  otfensive  to 
our  sentiment  of  moral  independence.  It  is  otfensive, 
however,  chiefly  when  we  think  of  righteousness  as  a 
course  of  right  action  or  decision  such  as  every  man 
must  effect  for  himself,  rather  than  as  a  state  of  right 
valuing  such  as  no  man  by  solitary  effort  can  reach. 
Experience  should  throw  some  light  on  what  men  need 
and  can  use  in  ‘working  out  their  salvation.’  The 
experience  of  India  is  especially  worth  considering, 
because  it  is  in  India  that  the  greatest  religions  of 
self-help,  Brahmanism  and  early  Buddhism,  have  run 
their  course.  It  is  not  without  meaning  that  while  on 
the  soil  of  India  Brahmanism  has  declined  and  Bud¬ 
dhism  has  largely  disappeared  in  favor  of  religions 
teaching  divine  help  and  human  dependence,  both  have 
taken  on  as  it  were  departments  of  supernatural  aid 


THE  DIVINE  AGGKESSION 


395 


foreign  to  their  original  logic/  And  farther  West, 
from  the  sixth  century  B.  C.  onward,  the  spread  of  the 
private  mysteries  whose  purport  was  to  bring  the 
initiate  through  various  sacraments  into  effective 
union  with  a  god  who  had  suffered  and  was  disposed 
to  redeem  his  soul,  may  be  read  in  the  same  light.  The 
vogue  and  earnestness  of  many  of  these  mysteries 
certainly  imply  a  development  of  individual  self- 
consciousness  and  cosmic  anxiety  such  as  the  corporate 
national  religions  were  no  longer  able  wholly  to 
appease;  the  race  was  then  beginning  to  recognize  in 
a  groping  fashion  that  the  self,  so  far  as  society  ^ould 
help  it  to  its  own,  was  inadequately  helped  and  in  much 
danger  of  being  lost;  it  had  begun  to  define  the  prob¬ 
lem  which  religion  in  its  distinction  from  the  national 
life  had  to  solve.  And  we  may  regard  Christianity  as 

1  Professor  J.  E.  Carpenter  quotes  a  modern  Hindu  prayer  which 
shows  well  the  spirit  of  the  predominant  piety  of  Hinduism, — the  bhakti- 
piety,  which  seeks  an  influx  of  divine  power  such  as  endows  the  soul 
with  mastery  over  its  earthly  nature  not  essentially  different  from  the 
mana  of  aboriginal  and  eternal  human  piety  except  in  its  primarily 
moral  impact:  “O  Lord  of  the  Universe,  O  All-Consciousness,  presiding 
Deity  of  all,  Vishnu,  at  thy  bidding  and  to  please  thee  alone  I  rise  this 
morning  and  enter  on  the  discharge  of  my  daily  duties,  I  know  what 
is  righteous,  yet  I  feel  no  attraction  for  it;  I  know  what  is  not  righteous, 
yet  I  have  no  repulsion  from  it.  O  Lord  of  the  senses,  O  Thou  seated 
in  the  heart,  may  I  do  thy  commands  as  ordered  by  thee  in  my  con¬ 
science.^^  (Comparative  Eeligion,  p.  158.)  The  Krishna  of  the 
Bhagavad-Gita  may  be  regarded  as  the  Brahmanical  form  of  the  divine- 
human  deliverer  from  passion  and  all  earthly  attachments.  And 
Buddhism  has  produced  such  conceptions  as  that  of  Avalokite^vara,  who 
made  a  vow  not  to  accept  his  own  release  until  the  demons  themselves 
as  well  as  all  men  should  be  enlightened  and  saved,  the  Amithabha 
Buddha  “of  boundless  Light,”  who,  carried  to  China  and  Japan,  be¬ 
comes  the  holy  Amida,  by  whose  exertions  alone  new  hearts  are  conferred 
upon  men. 


396 


CHKISTIANITY 


one  of  the  latest  of  the  solutions  of  this  problem, 
containing  the  kernel  of  all  the  other  mysteries,  and 
surviving  them  because  it  was  fit  to  survive.  Bead 
in  this  way,  religious  experience  gives  strong  support 
to  the  view  that  salvation  from  outside  is  needed. 

But  we  may  also  read  all  this,  as  Professor  Gilbert 
Murray  is  inclined  to  read  it,  as  a  symptom  of  political 
disintegration  and  a  colossal  and  widespread  ^‘failure 
of  nerve.’’  The  facts  of  history  never  yield  a  con¬ 
clusive  principle  for  their  own  judgment.  For  such 
a  principle  we  must  look  to  psychology, — that  is,  to 
our  own  knowledge  of  ourselves. 

And  certainly  the  idea  of  salvation  from  outside  is 
not  without  psychological  support,  or  for  that  matter, 
biological  support.  For  life  itself,  so  far  as  experience 
yet  shows,  always  comes  from  outside,  from  prior  life, 
as  something  conferred,  not  acquired.^  It  is  not  out 
-  of  natural  order  that  certain  parts  or  ingredients  of 
life  should  come  in  the  same  way,  as  by  a  mental 
epigenesis.  Such  an  addition  from  mthout  can  fre¬ 
quently  be  verified  in  the  transition  from  one  level  of 
value  to  another,  at  times  when  a  person  seems  unable 
to  accomplish  that  transition  for  himself.  For 
example,  I  am  told  to  cheer  up  and  take  things  with 
a  grain  of  humor.  But  how  is  humor  possible  to  me, 
if  as  a  fact  I  am  morose?  Probably  it  is  not  possible 
by  any  solemn  effort  I  may  make  for  it ;  but  there  are 

2  Fichte,  for  whom  the  moral  will  is  the  supreme  reality,  tried  to 
explain  the  emergence  of  a  personal  self  into  existence  as  an  act  of  its 
own  freedom;  but  not  even  Fichte’s  ingenuity  succeeded  in  giving  the 
hypothesis  a  footing. 


THE  DIVINE  AGGKESSION 


397 


persons  whose  entrance  can  make  it  possible,  and  all 
but  force  it  upon  me.  Or,  bow  is  confidence  possible, 
if  as  a  fact  I  am  afraid?  It  is  not  possible,  and  my 
efforts  to  reassure  myself,  by  confessing  my  fears, 
confirm  them.  But  I  can  do  a  great  deal  to  Hake’ 
heart  at  the  summons  of  one  who  has  it,  or  even  at  the 
memory  of  a  voice  that  is  charged  with  it.  These 
processes  may  be  processes  of  participation ;  but  they 
are  frequently  of  a  more  active  sort  on  the  part  of  the 
other  mind,  like  an  intentional  and  aggressive  imposing 
of  a  state  of  mind  upon  me.^  They  appeal  to  the  con¬ 
sent  of  the  self-to-be  rather  than  to  the  consent  of  the 
present  self,  though  unless  something  in  that  present 
self  gave  consent  the  state  could  not  be  imposed. 

These  facts  imply  that  the  self  is  not  a  closed  monad 
in  its  moral  life  any  more  than  in  its  mental  and 
physical  life.  Just  as  there  is  a  mental  hunger  for 
new  data  to  be  ingested  into  our  mental  substance,  a 
hunger  which  we  sometimes  call  Huriosity,’  and  some¬ 
times  the  Empirical  attitude’  of  mind,  so  there  is  a 
moral  appetite  which  has  as  yet  no  name,  but  whichl^ 
makes  a  part  of  our  social  appetite.  For  in  social 
intercourse  we  receive  here  and  there  not  alone  new^ 
data,  but  new  inductions  already  well  grown,  new 
ideas  ready  to  transplant  and  mature,  new  attitudes 
toward  experience  as  a  whole, — almost,  one  might  s^y, 
new  selfhood.  We  remain  ourselves  in  all  this, 
because  we  choose  what  we  admit;  but  we  become  as 
it  were  the  spirit  of  a  living  society  of  included  selves, 

8  This  process  is  doubtless  akin  to  suggestion,  but  it  is  more  direct 
and  avowed  to  the  subject  than  suggestion  is. 


398 


CHKISTIANITY 


receiving  constant  accessions  not  alone  .by  germination 
from  within  but  also  by  adoption  from  without.  It 
is  because  of  this  openness  of  mind  on  their  part  that 
our  neighbors,  if  we  were  competent,  might  be  saved 
by  us  (as  we  have  all  along  assumed) ;  and  it  is  by 
this  same  openness  of  mind  that  we,  if  there  were  a 
competent  other,  might  be  saved.  The  question.  How 
is  love  to  God  or  to  men  possible  if  as  a  fact  I  do  not 
have  it?  would  be  answered  if  there  were,  as  the 
moving  spirit  of  the  world,  an  aggressive  lover  able 
and  disposed  to  break  in  upon  my  temper  of  critical 
egoism  and  win  my  response.  This  would  seem  to  be 
a  necessary,  if  not  a  sufficient,  condition  of  ^salvation’; 
and  thus  far  psychology  lends  support  to  our  reading 
of  the  history  of  religion,  namely,  that  in  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  the  private  mystery,  religion  was  finding  its 
way  to  a  knowledge  of  the  actual  needs  of  men.  How 
Christianity  proposes  to  meet  those  needs  we  may 
state  in  our  own  way. 


Ill 

Plato  and  Aristotle  represented  God  as  that  abso¬ 
lute  good  which,  unmoving  and  changeless  in  itself, 
the  soul  pursues  and  longs  for.  To  Christianity,  it  is 
the  soul  that  is  pursued;  and  God  is  forever  restless, 
in  quest  of  what  to  him  is  lost.  The  God  of  the 
Christian  is  one  who  invades  the  earth  in  order  to 
bring  men  to  themselves:  to  every  soul  of  man  he 
‘stands  at  the  door  and  knocks.’  He  does  not  forgo 
the  power  of  silent  attraction  found  in  the  non- 


THE  DIVINE  AGGEESSION 


399 


assertive  Tao  of  Lao  Tze,  or  in  Brahm,  or  in  the 
Unmoved  Mover  of  the  Greek ;  but  it  is  as  one  who  has 
known  finitude  and  is  Gifted  up  from  the  earth’  that 
he  will  draw  all  men  unto  him.  He  disguises  himself, 
takes  the  form  of  a  servant;  he  comes  to  his  own  and 
his  own  know  him  not ;  he  is  despised  and  rejected  and 
done  to  death.  And  all  this  is  the  foil  and  background 
of  his  great  joy.  For  he  has  his  moment  when  to  some 
mind,  more  honest  than  usual  to  its  own  need,  there 
comes  a  presentiment  of  recognition,  and  the  awed 
question.  Who  art  thou.  Lord? — to  which  he  ansAvers, 
I  am  he  whom  thou  persecutest.  ' 

No  assertion  could  be  more  empty  than  the  Christian 
saying  that  God  is  love,  if  that  love  Avere  simply  a 
subjective  disposition  on  the  part  of  a  being  forever 
inactive  and  unseen.  If  God  exists  as  a  good  will,  that 
Avill  must  do  its  Avork  in  the  world  of  time  and  event 
as  a  will  to  power  not  wholly  unlike  our  own,  and  so 
coming  to  itself  as  Ave  must,  through  the  saAung  of 
others.  Christianity  is  right  in  holding  that  such  a 
'  God,  if  he  exists,  must  somehow  appear  in  the  temporal 
order.  And  it  seems  to  me  that  it  is  also  right  in 
saying  that  he  must  suffer;  and  not  alone  AAuth  us  (as 
any  god  must  who  knoAvs  Avhat  is  going  on)  but  also 
for  us,  and  at  our  hands.  For  the  ‘hardening  of  our 
hearts,’  i.e.,  their  alienation  from  reality,  due  to  our 
preoccupation  with  our  own  suffering,  could  hardly 
be  overcome  except  by  seeing  that  in  the  'actual  mesh 
of  our  own  experience  the  brunt  of  our  selfishness  has 
fallen  upon  him,  and  that  he,  in  this  sense,  bears  our 
sin  in  his  own  body.  It  is  such  a  god,  active  in  history 


400 


CHKISTIANITY 


and  suffering  there,  that  Christianity  declares  as  the 
most  important  fact  about  the  world  we  live  in. 

To  believe  in  such  a  god  would  give  history  a  mean¬ 
ing  over  and  above  any  visible  or  experimental 
meaning  it  may  have :  it  would  have  to  be  read  as  the 
drama  of  God’s  life,  his  making  and  remaking  of  men. 
His  concern  for  them  would  have  to  be  thought  as 
literal  and  individual  as  they  themselves  are  literal 
and  individual.  Love,  as  Eoyce  has  said,  individuates 
its  object;  but  it  is  equally  true  that  it  individuates  its 
subject:  it  takes  an  individual  to  he  a  lover.  And 
every  human  being,  if  these  things  are  true,  must  be 
able  to  discover  as  the  sense  of  his  entire  experience 
a  direct  address  of  the  absolute  being  to  him,  as  if 
the  world  were  made  for  him  alone.  The  universe 
becomes  suddenly,  not  ego-centric,  but  multi-centric. 
Just  as  in  infinite  space,  the  center  of  reference  may 
be  assumed  in  any  point ;  so  in  history,  as  Christianity 
must  see  it,  the  center  of  the  universe  is  everywhere 
that  the  divine  interest  finds  a  person.  ‘‘Whoever 
you  are,  now  I  place  my  hand  upon  you  that  you  be 
my  poem”:  this  is  the  point  of  tangency  between 
Whitman’s  semi-pagan  genius  and  the  spirit  of  Chris¬ 
tian  history.  Without  excluding  a  movement  in 
history  toward  a  goal  or  toward  many  goals,  there  is 
in  this  picture  no  meager  one-way  teleology,  but  loss 
and  supreme  attainment  are  everywhere.  It  is  not 
unlike  the  world  of  the  child,  who  has  not  yet  learned 
to  doubt  that  all  things  exist  for  his  sake;  and  to  the 
end  it  requires  something  of  the  spirit  of  a  child  to 
enter  the  world  of  Christianity.  The  strain  on  belief 


THE  DIVINE  AGGKESSION  401 

is  at  a  maximum;  and  this  religion  does  nothing  to 
relieve  it. 

Judicious  heads,  having  seen  much  of  the  world  ^s 
actual  indifference,  might  incline  to  ease  the  burden  of 
so  much  faith  by  reducing  God^s  alleged  love  to  a 
general  disposition,  a  kindly  wish  and  effort  toward 
a  far-off  good  available  to  the  ultimate  denizens  of 
time.  A  finite  or  mildly  benevolent  power,  struggling 
as  a  sort  of  elan  of  life  against  the  perpetual  resist¬ 
ance  of  matter,  and  like  a  cosmic  council  of  war  so  lost 
in  vast  designs  that  the  private  fades  before  its  view 
into  the  mass,  seems  much  more  probable  to'  those 
whose  metaphysics  is  a  distillation  of  the  mixed 
essences  of  experience.  But  probability  has  no  place 
in  metaphysics ;  and  the  probable  God  is  a  very 
unlikely  God,  in  the  sense  that  he  solves  no  problems. 
Whether  the  world  we  live  in  is  or  is  not  the  world  of 
Christianity  is  a  question  of  fact. 


CHAPTEE  XLVII 


THE  LAST  FACT 

I  DOUBT  whether  philosophy  can  affirm  the  exist¬ 
ence  of  this  fact.  It  can  show  that  if  snch  a  fact 
were  extant  onr  dilemma  wonld  be  solved.  It  can 
show,  further,  that  certain  characters  of  the  world  are 
in  harmony  with  snch  a  fact.  Thus,  the  dialectic  of 
experience,  as  we  look  back  upon  it,  may  be  understood 
as  a  part  of  the  strategy  of  ‘  ^  The  Hound  of  Heaven.  ’  ’ 
The  world  is  so  devised  that  ^‘All  things  betray  thee, 
who  betrayest  me’L  the  will,  apparently  driven  by 
dissatisfaction  in  its  own  false  definitions  of  good, 
may  to  a  deeper  knowledge  be  seen  as  driven  by  the 
wind  of  a  god’s  desire.  And  as  for  all  the  irregularly 
distributed  individual  deprivation,  it  is  at  least  con¬ 
ceivable  that  it  is  part  of  the  individual  appeal  of  that 
same  god : 

.  All  which  I  took  from  thee,  I  did  but  take 
Not  for  thy  harms,  but  just  that  thou 
Mightst  seek  it  in  my  arms.  .  .  . 

I  am  he  whom  thou  seekest. 

But  the  power  of  so  understanding  the  dialectic,  or 
so  interpreting  evil,  is  retrospective.  The  force  which 
could  lift  the  mind  into  a  position  from  which  this 
reading  seems  the  truth  does  not  lie  in  the  dialectic 
itself.  It  must  come  as  a  positive  datum,  something 


THE  LAST  FACT 


403 


itself  personally  experienced  or  ‘revealed/  It  is  here 
that  religion  takes  the  issue  out  of  the  hands  of 
philosophy. 

For  religion  in  its  historical  forms  is  empirical:  it 
appeals  to  the  realistic  temper:  it  deals  with  facts. 
Its  function  is  not  to  prove  God  but  to  announce  God. 
For  this  reason,  its  doctrine  is  stated  as  dogma;  and 
the  fundamental  dogma  of  religion  is  Ecce  Dens, 
Behold,  This  is  God.  Such  a  dogma  certainly  appeals 
to  the  reason  of  every  man,  for  it  can  mean  nothing 
to  any  one  except  in  so  far  as  he  is  capable  of  under¬ 
standing  his  own  needs;  but  beyond  that,  it  appeals 
to  his  power  to  recognize  what  he  needs  in  what  is 
real.  Recognition  is  an  act  of  the  mind  which  thought 
can  lead  up  to,  but  never  quite  enforce.  Hence  religion 
calls  upon  every  man  for  an  individual  and  ultimate 
“I  believe,’^  which  means,  “I  recognize  this  to  he  the 
fact,’’  or,  more  simply,  “I  see.” 


In  the  last  resort,  it  is  by  his  own  vision  that  every 
man  must  live : — when  we  call  a  man  an  individual,  we 
are  thinking  of  the  solitude  of  his  ultimate  relation  to 
reality.  He  must  live  by  what  he,  for  himself,  can 
recognize ;  and  his  power  of  recognizing  is  an  integral 
part  of  his  instinctive  equipment. 

For  as  hunger  may  he  trusted,  for  the  most  part,  to 
recognize  what  will  serve  as  food,  so  all  instinct  may 
he  trusted  to  recognize  what  it  needs  in  the  world,  if 
what  it  needs  is  there.  Animal  instinct  will  recognize 


404 


CHRISTIANITY 


its  needed  -physical  facts,  human  instinct  its  needed 
physical  and  metaphysical  facts, — if  they  exist. 

• 

•  • 

Conversely,  whatever  beliefs,  or  metaphysical  find¬ 
ings,  men  have  lived  by  are  to  some  extent  corroborated 
(certainly  not  by  ^general  consent,’  but)  by  the  cir¬ 
cumstance  that  they  have  formed  part  of  the  vital 
circuit  of  human  instinct,  have  been  the  feeders  and 
shapers  of  instinct.  The  more  durable  of  these  beliefs 
are  not  wholly  illusory :  ^^Vaction  ne  saurait  se  mouvoir 
dans  rirreeld^ 

But  in  the  composition  of  these  working  beliefs, 
fiction  and  mere  hopefulness  may  mingle  with  positive 
metaphysical  finding  in  unknown  proportion.  The 
mystic  in  man,  the  original  seer  of  ultimate  things, 
learns  but  slowly  to  discriminate  between  his  percep¬ 
tions  and  his  dreams.  The  critic  in  man,  the  judgment 
based  on  experience  and  self-conscious  reason,  rises 
but  slowly  to  the  task  of  releasing  what  is  significant 
and  true  in  dogma  from  what  is  irrelevant  and  false, — 
condemning  sometimes  too  little,  quite  as  frequently 
too  much. 


The  individual,  then,  who  realizes  that  his  meta¬ 
physical  questions  are  questions  of  life  and  death  for 
instinct  and  will,  can  give  no  exclusive  credence  either 
to  the  mystic  in  himself  or  to  the  critic ;  he  will  require 
them  to  act  in  co-operation.  He  will  be  satisfied 
neither  with  pragmatic  beliefs,  chosen  for  their  prom- 


THE  LAST  FACT 


405 


ise  of  satisfaction  (ghosts  of  human  desires  offered 
as  substantial  food  to  these  same  desires),  nor  with 
true  general  ideas  ( entities  which  taken  alone  make  no 
difference  and  do  no  work). 

He  will  realize  that  his  instinctive  appetite  for 
knowledge  is  an  honorable  appetite.  It  is  in  the  exist¬ 
ing  world  that  instinct  must  grow  and  work  out  its 
meaning;  and  the  existing  world  is  distinguishable 
both  from  pragmatic  dreams  and  from  true  general 
ideas:  it  is  a  union  of  general  ideas  with  matter  of 
fact  in  a  living  fabric  of  historical  movement  and 
change.  It  is  to  this  living  mesh  that  mystic  and  critic 
must  direct  their  vision.  Whatever  is  real  and  signifi¬ 
cant  for  instinct  must  in  some  way  exist  in  the  active 
surface  of  history, — some  of  it  no  doubt  huilt  into 
history  at  various  points  of  the  working  edge  of  time 
in  such  .wise  that  we  could  not  now  unbuild  it  if  we 
would. 

As  an  inseparable  part  of  the  question.  What  sort  of 
world  is  it  that  we  live  in?  he  will  thus  be  driven  to 
enquire.  What  sort  of  world  have  we  been  living  in? 
What  have  been  the  metaphysical  foundations,  real  or 
supposed  real,  for  those  qualities,  those  instinct- 
shapes,  which  characterize  our  present  human  type! 


The  qualities  which  have  made  and  are  making  our 
contemporary  civilization  are  not  qualities  of  intellect 
more  than  qualities  of  character:  they  are  such  quali¬ 
ties  as  integrity,  reliability,  legality,  practical  force, 
love  of  liberty.  At  the  root  of  them  is  a  capacity  for 


CHKISTIANITY 


406 

f  facing  and  absorbing  the  increasing  pain  which  is 
V  incident  to  increasing  contact  with  objective  reality. 
To  surrender  ourselves  without  flinching  to  the  find- 
^gs  of  natural  science  is  something  we  have  had  to 
learn  by  painfully  slow  degrees;  to  accept  the  unflat¬ 
tering  position  of  man  in  the  Copernican  world  and  in 
the  evolutionary  scheme ;  to  regard  and  burrow  deeper 
into  the  human  mind  as  an  object  in  nature;  to  submit 
to  the  hardship  involved  in  making  a  social  order  on 
the  principle  of  a  thoroughly  objective  impersonal 
justice, — all  this  has  required  the  ^virtue’  of  Eome, 
together  with  a  sympathy  and  sensitiveness  to  what 
is  not-ourselves  that  has  not  come  from  Eome.  Our 
!  civilization  is  one  which  has  once  for  all  put  away 
I  vested  interest  in  illusions,  and  has  dared  to  stand 
naked  before  the  last  facts  so  far  as  it  could  find  them. 
In  this  there  is  much  of  the  plain  ^grit’  such  as  Joseph 
Conrad  loves  to  celebrate:  but  grit  is  not  necessarily 
attentive  to  the  weak,  the  incipient,  the  minute,  the 
growing, — and  it  is  here  that  our  peculiar  strength  and 
^  promise  lies.  It  is  a  union  of  strength  and  tenderness 
^  which  has  brought  us  to  the  best  we  have  so  far  found. 

The  strength  that  we  have  is  not  the  strength  of 
\  physical  instinct;  nor  has  it  ever  been  for  mankind 
‘pure’  grit.  In  former  times,  with  the  zest  of  original 
pugnacity  and  the  conviction  of  mounting  passion, 
men  could  throw  themselves  without  reserve  into  the 
issues  of  battle;  and  battle  became  for  them  a  quasi-^ 
religious  orgy  in  which  the  spirit  of  the  fathers  and 
(  of  the  tribe  drew  near  almost  to  touching  and  filled 
the  frame  with  unwonted  power.  Grit  and  enthusiasm 


THE  LAST  FACT 


407 


went  together.  And  now  without  the  aid  of  primitive 
feeling  or  hope  of  individual  glory  men  of  more\ 
sensitive  mould  go  simply  to  a  mill  of  war  whose 
portent  of  possible  sutfering  is  incomparably  more 
intense.  What  do  these  men  stand  on  I  Not  on  any 
consciousness  of  the  heroic,  hut  on  the  plain  sense  of 
what  is  necessary;  and  they  profess  thereby  a  faith 
of  some  kind  that  facing  what  is  necessary  is  better 
than  muffling  the  head  in  a  lying  dream.  Effectively 
and  actually  men  care  more  for  reality  than  ever 
before,  and  behind  that  confidence  lies  some  kind  of 
creed,  or  let  me  say,  some  kind  of  contact  with  the 
spirit  of  the  world. 

Neither  is  the  tenderness  we  have  the  tenderness  of 
physical  instinct.  We  tend,  we  teach,  we  legislate,  we 
try  our  hand  at  justice  and  reform.  We  do  this  not 
from  any  pure  outflow  of  kindness:  we  do  it  with  a 
certain  joy  of  power  which  is  at  the  same  time  full^^ 
awake  to  the  defect  of  our  performance.  The  parent 
who  deals  with  his  son  and  the  publicist  whose  thought 
becomes  the  rule  for  millions  are  well  aware  in  these 
days  of  the  human  equation  in  their  judgments.  We 
are  democratic:  no  authorities  among  us  dare  set  up 
as  absolute.  They  live,  we  all  live,  at  the  requirement 
of  the  movement  of  things  ^over  a  gap  unhridged  by 
our  own  competence.  Earlier  men  acted  thus  instinc¬ 
tively,  with  the  confident  affection  and  protectiveness 
of  the  animal  parent  or  leader.  But  if  we  act  thus  it 
is  because,  while  self-doubts  emerge  and  continue  to 
emerge,  they  have  seemed  to  receive  from  the  world 
we  live  in  assurances  that  satisfy,  as  if  at  least  the 


408 


CHRISTIANITY 


/  kindlier  enterprises  of  living  were,  or  might  be,  a  part- 
/  nership  with  power  more  intimately  attuned  than  our 
/  own  to  the  inner  facts  of  history,  capable  of  reaching 
\  its  goal  in  the  midst  of  our  inadequacies. 


If  the  spirit  of  the  world  is  actually  such  as  to  justify 
to  the  growingly  self-conscious  being  this  kind  of  con¬ 
fidence  and  sensitiveness,  we  should  doubtless,  as  with 
all  pervasive  utilities,  better  recognize  the  ingredient 
which  does  this  work  if  it  were  experimentally  mth- 
drawn. 

And  as  it  happens,  such  aid  to  vision  is  not  wholly 
lacking  at  this  moment.  A  calamity  having  the  force 
of  a  ghastly  experiment  occurs,  vivisection  of  this 
vaunted  Western  life,  with  all  its  sources,  material  and 
otherwise,  putting  a  harsh  end  to  all  mere  momentums 
of  belief,  to  all  complacenQies,  sanctimonies,  and  in¬ 
fallible  prescriptions,  to  all  sleepy  tugging  at  dry  paps. 
How  much  can  you  do^  without  and  still  live? — this 
searching  experimental  question  war  presses  home  to 
soul  and  body,  abolishing  stroke  by  stroke  gross  quan¬ 
tities  of  wealth,  gross  quantities  also  of  life,  beauty, 
happiness,  personal  and  pubjic.  But  with  all  these 
abolitions  spreads  another, — the  swift  and  easy  aboli¬ 
tion  of  that  supposed  ^sanctity  of  human  life’  together 
with  other  sanctities  formerly  potent :  this,  too,  we  are 
called  upon  to  do  without  if  we  can,  or  perhaps  rather 
^  to  see  it  for  what  it  was, — a  glamor  of  some  sort,  a 
conspiracy  to  hold  high  the  level  of  self-esteem,  mutual 
palaver  of  polite  society,  valid  enough  so  long  as  no 


THE  LAST  FACT 


409 


serious  business  is  on,  no  occasion  for  telling  one 
another  cold  truth. 

Cold  truth  being  now  in  order,  we  measure  humanity 
in  the  mass  as  so  much  force,  resistance,  morale ;  feed 
it  into  the  hopper  by  regiments,  brigades.  A  comrade, 
a  friend,  changes  in  an  instant  into  debris,  so  much 
wreckage  to  be  cleared  away.  Once  more  we  see  man 
in  terms  of  his  yield :  er  ist  was  er  isst;  and  that  will  of 
his,  that  morale  and  mentality,  is  a  bit  of  equipment, 
an  appareilj  working  best  when  nearest  the  ground,  fit 
for  short  flights,  better  avoiding  long  ones  and  cer¬ 
tainly  ail  infinite  flights.  ‘Infinite  value Infinite] 
conceit ! 

When  this  sentiment  about  human  value  is  thus  un^ 
sentimentally  challenged,  we  perceive  that  it  has  had 
much  to  do  with  sustaining  those  qualities  of  confidence 
and  tenderness  which  we  thought  distinctive  of  our 
civilization.  It  is  not  itself  a  metaphysical  belief,  but 
a  by-product  of  such  a  belief,  doubtless  the  belief  of 
which  we  are^  in  search,  and  whose  character  we  may  ^ 
now  dimly  make  out. 


There  is  an  instinct  in  us  as  yet  unnamed  by  psychol- 
ogy,  perhaps  the  deepest  instinct  of  all :  it  is  the  total 


infantile  response  to  the  maternal  impulse.  This  in¬ 
stinct  knows  what  kind  of  metaphysic  it  needs,  namely, 
a  world  maternal  not  in  part  only,  but  altogether. 
What  has  happened,  then,  is  obvious,  is  it  not?  That 
benevolent  god  with  a  trillion  equally  dear  children, 
that  picture  of  world-family-dom,  or  of  world-shep- 


410 


CHKISTIANITY 


herd-hood,  that  impossible  Absolute  engaged  in  count¬ 
less  simultaneous  ‘seeking  and  saving^  enterprises, — 
all  of  this  is  but  the  poetry  of  childhood,  valid  there  in 
fact,  and  holding  over  into  the  more  sheltered  corners 
of  mature  hopefulness,  lingering  to  comfort  minds 
that  insist  on  being  comforted,  minds  incapable  of 
genuine  maturity, — or  perhaps  even  to  protect  certain 
subjectivities  and  prides,  personal,  racial,  genealogi¬ 
cal,  remnants  of  stale  human  provinciality  liking  to 
/  believe  itself  the  chosen  strain.  This  persistent  meta- 
I  physics  of  the  motherhood  of  history  or  grandmother- 
I  liness  of  history, — is  it  not  the  most  palpable  of  prag- 
\  matic  fictions,  or  instinct-beliefs  ?  And  if  so,  it  can  no 
^  longer  serve  us,  having  been  found  out. 


j  But  what  becomes,  then,  of  these  contemporary 
/  qualities  of  justified  strength  and  tenderness?  They 
do  not  disappear;  they  are  merely  replaced  by  more 
elemental  editions  of  themselves,  suited  rather  to 
a  world  aloof,  preoccupied,  or  inditferent  than  to  a 
parental  world. 

If  ‘justified  confidence’  is  unavailable,  there  is  al¬ 
ways  a  well  of  instinctive  confidence  to  fall  back  upon, 
/  the  simplest,  least-borrowed  thing  in  human  nature, 
least  needing  to  be  justified, — the  now  admittedly  pure 
grit  of  man  at  bay  in  a  world  neither  his  own  nor  any¬ 
one ’s;  confidence  original,  titanic,  defiant;  confidence 
.ueherhaupt.  There  is  an  attitude  needing  no  meta- 
^  physics,  an  attitude,  well  so-called,  which  few  are  in- 


THE  LAST  FACT 


411 

capable  of  striking  if  necessary.  We  can  always  actl 
as  if  men,  or  some  men,  were  worth  while,  and  had") 
rights,  ourselves  included.  For  the  human  life  authen¬ 
tically  valued  by  an  absolute  valuer,  substitute  the 
instinctive  self -valuation  of  the  human  animal,  par¬ 
ticularly  the  masculine  animal;  and  for  the  deference 
due  to  beings  objectively  worthy  of  reverence,  substi¬ 
tute  the  warmth  of  a  maternal  sympathy  spreading 
from  the  center  outward  as  the  vital  economy  permits. 
Give  these  well-founded  sentiments  an  artificial  exten¬ 
sion  by  the  device  called  the  State ;  so  that  a  degree  of 
parenthood  enters  into  an  entire  community  in  its 
relations  to  its  own  members, — competing  and  warring 
from  time  to  time  with  similar  sentiments  of  parent¬ 
hood  on  the  part  of  other  communities;  and  as  there 
is  no  real  parent,  parenthood  may  be  said  to  exist  just 
so  far  as  it  can  forcibly  make  itself  valid  in  the  world. 

This  is  the  alternative  into  which  we  may  seem 
driven  by  the  disillusionments,  the  down-crashing  of 
all  current  sentiments,  in  this  day  of  reckoning.  And 
in  that  case,  we  see  the  statesmen  of  the  Prussia  of 
1914  as  the  prophets  of  the  coming  age;  and  history, 
having  reached  its  summit,  turns  downward. 

•  • 

Let  it  be  clearly  understood  that  this  reversal  of 
direction  is  involved  in  the  proposed  change.  For 
animal  confidence  can  no  longer  sustain  a  fully  human 
etfort  as  we  have  come  to  understand  it,  not  even  a 
human  war. 

The  flame  of  war  can  leap  into  life  among  common 


412 


CHEISTIANITY 


people  only  because  of  the  presence  there  of  a  meta¬ 
physical  outlook  that  seems  to  make  a  number  of  things, 
/including  human  life,  objectively  valuable  and  ‘sacred/ 
'  If  the  aims  of  war,  or  the  activities  of  war,  contradict 
this  belief ;  or  if  self-consciousness  in  the  midst  of  the 
I  carnage  is  driven  to  press  its  questions.  Do  I  matter? 
i  Does  any  deed  or  thought  of  mine  matter?  Does  any 
other  deed  or  thought  or  interest  or  life  matter?  Does 
the  ‘cause’  itself  finally  matter,  or  the  nation  and  all 
its  wars,  holy  or  unholy? — the  spirit  inevitably  seeps 
out  of  the  fighting.  It  is  possible  for  fighting  to  under¬ 
mine  one’s  sense  of  the  only  things  worth  fighting  for. 

And  what  is  true  of  war  is  true  to  an  even  greater 
degree  of  the  long  upbuilding  effort  of  the  creative 
arts.  If  ‘progress’  must  bring  disillusionment  and  the 
harsh  daylight  of  a  denying  realism,  progress  is 
destined  to  devour  its  own  children. 

Values,  human  values,  can  survive,  only  if,  reaching 
[  out  toward  a  metaphysical  condition  which  their 
dream-shapes  foreshadow,  they  find  it.  They  need 
reality  to  climb  on ;  they  need  a  reality  they  can  climb 
on.  They  want  an  independent  source  of  standards, 
a  mooring  outside  of  nature,  such  as  we  surmised  at 
the  beginning  of  our  study.  Their  own  poussee  vitale 
droops,  half-grown,  unless  it  meets  an  equivalent 
attrait  vital  streaming  into  its  environment  from  some 
pole  outside  itself. 


And  thus  this  experiment,  this  world-surgery,  begins 
to  make  so  much  unmistakable:  That  what  human 


THE  LAST  FACT 


413 


nature  lias  been  responding  to  is  not  its  own  instinctive 
self-esteem,  codified  in  institutions,  or  uncodified,  but 
a  valuation  believed  real  and  objective,  supposedly 
bailing  from  beyond  nature,  authoritatively  requiring 


of  man  that  self-honor  and  that  honor  of  his  kind  which 


his  own  impulse  achieves  but  fitfully  and  from  the 
center  outward. 

And  this  valuation,  be  it  noted,  has  appeared  to  him 
not  as  a  proclaimed  theorem  regarding  human  value 
in  the  abstract,  but  as  actual  valuedness,  i.e.,  valuation 
acted  upon  in  multitudes  of  deeds,  struggles  for  human 
rights  and  guarantees  thereof,  sacrifices  and  martyr¬ 
doms  without  number;  in  all  of  which  an  authentic 
divine  will  and  activity  were  supposed  discernible  by 
those  having  eyes  to  see.  To  many  of  these  human 
doers  their  own  deeds  appeared  to  be  utterances  not 
alone  of  their  private  wills  but  also  of  the  ultimate 
will  of  the  world.  In  brief,  we  of  this  age  have  been 
living  on  an  aggressive  valuation,  built  into  history, 
and  supposed  whether  wisely  or  not  to  transmit  an 
absolute  judgment. 

•  • 

And  not  strangely,  mankind  seems  to  have  counted 
most  on  the  costliest  of  such  deeds,  the  most  deliber¬ 
ately  defiant  of  the  natural  appearance.  As  at  this 
moment,  so  it  has  always  been:  it  is  the  negation  by 
the  brute  forces  of  the  world,  the  negation  and  con¬ 
tempt  of  what  humanity  has  held  most  precious,  which 
has  split  opinion  into  its  concealed  extremes.  ^ 

For  it  is  just  such  negation  which  creates  the  oppor- 


414 


CHKISTIANITY 


tunity  for  deeds  most  audaciously  experimental,  deeds 
of  self-immolation  of  which  the  onlooker  must  say 
that  they  embody  either  the  wisdom  of  the  gods,  or 
else  infra-human  unwisdom.  It  is  upon  the  great 
experimental  sacrifices  of  history  that  men  have 
climbed  to  their  positive  metaphysical  insights;  or 
to  what  they  have  taken  to  be  such,  be  it  only  their 
passionate  assertions  that  such  sacrifices,  such  blot- 
tings  out  of  man  ^s  evident  best,  cannot  have  been  folly, 
and  shall  not  have  been  vain.  ^ 


It  is  not  for  us,  here,  to  assert  or  deny,  either  pas¬ 
sionately  or  otherwise;  but  as  students  of  human 
nature  and  its  destiny  to  state  deliberately  the  connec¬ 
tions  of  cause  and  consequence,  and  face  our  alterna¬ 
tives.  Our  metaphysical  finding,  our  last  fact,  may  be 
such  as  to  release  and  encourage  the  growth  of  in¬ 
stinctive  meaning,  warming  out  its  inner  logic  and 
wider  linkages ;  it  may  be  (as  with  Schopenhauer)  such 
as  to  wither  and  repel  it;  it  may  be  no  finding  at  all, 
but  an  enigmatic  silence  of  a  non-committal  world 
which  denies  only  by  refusing  to  affirm.  In  no  case  is 
it  indifferent. 

Absence  of  belief  that  the  world  as  a  whole  has  an 
active  individual  concern  for  the  creatures  it  has  pro¬ 
duced  need  neither  destroy  happiness  nor  the  morality 
of  compassion.  Life  would  always  be  worth  living 
and  worth  living  well,  so  long  as/ree  from  the  major 
torments.  Instinct  has  its  satisfactions  in  an  unin¬ 
terpreted  or  partly  interpreted  condition :  it  will  reach 


THE  LAST  FACT 


415 


some  accommodation  to  the  world  that  is.  Nothing- 
would  necessarily  he  destroyed  or  lost  from  the  good 
life  which  some  at  least  of  the  human  race  now  know 
and  many  hope  for, — nothing  except  the  higher  reaches 
of  curiosity  and  sympathy,  and  the  wisdom  of  develop¬ 
ing  them.  It  is  only  the  enthusiasts  for  a  far-off  good, 
for  an  endlessly  progressive  humanity,  for  a  profound 
and  logical  love  of  life,  that  would  be  cut  off ;  it  is  only 
the  martyrs  that  have  played  the  fool;  only  to  saints 
and  sages  the  world  has  lied. 


APPENDED  NOTE 


THE  SOURCE  OF  OBLIGATION 

IN  our  account  of  sin  there  is  a  missing  element.  It 
is  the  missing  element,  but  the  implied  element, 
in  all  psychology,  -namely,  the  outer  world.  We  have 
described  the  moral  undertaking  as  a  struggle,  within 
self-consciousness,  the  effort  of  a  self  to  pull  itself 
together,  as  it  were,  from  the  midst  of  a  mass  of 
would-be  independent  impulses, — to  find  its  own 
meaning  and  to  make  every  instinct  share  in  that 
meaning.  Sin  we  described  simply  as  the  deliberate 
suppression  of  meaning,  the  treason  of  self-conscious¬ 
ness  to  its  own  most  vital  effort.  In  all  this  the  outer 
world  has  been  in  abeyance;  but  it  has  not  been 
forgotten.  An  ^ impulse’’  is  but  an  abbreviated  name 
for  an  ‘  ‘  impulse  to  this  or  that  action,  and  for  the  sake 
of  this  or  that  objective  good.’’  All  psychological 
terms  are  just  such  abbreviations,  naming  a  relation 
to  reality  from  the  inner  end.  Our  term,  the  will  to 
power,  carries  the  external  reference  on  its  face.  And 
so,  while  we  have  spoken  of  obligation  as  the  debt  of 
a  partial  impulse  to  a  total  will,  a  relation  wholly 
within  the  mind,  we  have  not  been  unmindful  of  the 
corresponding  relation  in  the  world  of  objects,  that 
between  a  partial  good  and  a  total  good. 

But  if  this  total  good,  the  object  of  my  total  will. 


418 


APPENDED  NOTE 


is  thought  of  simply  as  my  own  good,  we  have  not 
reached  the  center  of  the  idea  of  ‘obligation/  Obliga¬ 
tion  descends  upon  me  from  a  region  beyond  anything 
that  I  can  call  mine;  it  has  its  source  in  the  interest 
of  some  being  other  than  myself  in  my  conduct.  My 
duty  is  the  inner  angle  of  that  other  being  ^s  right. 
The  nature  of  sin  may  be  understood  on  the  ground  of 
psychology,  but  the  degree  of  importance  attached  to 
sin  and  righteousness  cannot  be  understood  without  a 
study  of  the  external  source  of  obligation. 

I 

The  most  natural,  and  popular,  view  of  the  case  is 
that  I  owe  obligation  primarily  to  my  neighbor:  any 
and  every  other  man  is  the  repository  of  some  right  in 
relation  to  me.  The  essence  of  wrong  is  the  disregard 
of  these  rights ;  and  sin,  on  its  practical  side,  is  there¬ 
fore  simply  selfishness.  Or  if  ‘selfishness^  is  too 
limited  a  term — too  naive  possibly,  or  merely  indulgent 
or  passive,  then  join  with  it  ‘self-will,’  which  may  be  as 
vigorous  and  determined  as  you  please.  Sin  is  wilful, 
unfriendly,  or  unsocial  conduct. 

This  view  covers  most  of  the  ground,  if  we  can  think 
of  the  moral  aspect  of  behavior  in  terms  of  areas. 
Most  sins  are  unsocial  acts.  In  most  cases,  the  wider 
thought-system  which  I  ought  to  consider  is  one  which 
takes  in  more  of  the  minds  of  other  persons.  This  is 
a  good  rule  of  thumb,  especially  for  the  public  phases 
of  moral  questions.  But  our  question  is  not  whether 
most  sinful  acts  are  unsocial  acts :  it  is  whether  any 
act  is  sinful  because  it  is  unsocial  or  unneighborly. 


THE  SOURCE  OF  OBLIGATION 


419 


» 

If  you  define  a  world  with  two  wills  in  it,  and  with 
an  insufficient  supply  of  goods  and  consequent  unsat¬ 
isfied  wants,  it  is  not  obvious  that  either  will  ought 
to  give  way  to  the  other,  or  that  each  should  do  so. 
So  long  as  they  are  two  wills,  related  in  such  wise  that 
the  altruism  of  one  is  the  egoism  of  the  other,  the  idea 
of  obligation  cannot  be  extracted  from  the  situation. 
I  cannot  find  it  in  the  simple  fact  of  my  neighbor’s 
existence  nor  of  his  want. 

Nor  am  I  convinced,  though  I  may  be  overawed, 
when  you  multiply  and  organize  and  perpetuate  this 
needy  neighbor,  and  call  it  society,  or  the  State. 
Professor  E.  A.  Ross  represents  a  large  body  of 
opinion  when  he  makes  the  egoism  of  society  the 
proper  object  of  my  altruism  and  self-sacrifice.^  But 
who  is  this  social  ego,  that  I  should  thus  indulge  it? 
I  am  inclined  by  many  natural  impulses  to  accept  sug¬ 
gestions  from  a  social  group  and  to  deal  sympatheti¬ 
cally  with  its  members ;  but  this  is  something  short  of 
accepting  the  group  as  a  final  authority  for  my  defer¬ 
ence.  The  moral  quality  of  the  behavior  of  Socrates 
or  of  John  Brown  is  not  decided  by  the  circumstance 
that  it  both  antagonized  and  tended  to  dissolve  the 

1  Social  Control,  p.  67.  Professor  Ross  would  scorn  the  idea  that  he  has 
dealings  with  the  absolute;  yet  I  must  accuse  him  of  setting  up  an 
absolute  in  the  form  of  this  social  ego.  And  many  others  today  who 
think  that  ‘absolute’  is  a  bad  word,  calling  themselves  pragmatists,  and 
saying  that  right  must  be  relative  to  the  stage  of  social  progress  and 
to  the  social  good  at  any  stage,  are  in  the  same  position.  For  whatever 
thing  is  stated  as  the  thing  to  which  other  things  are  relative,  is  by 
definition  their  absolute.  The  pragmatic  moralists,  for  the  most  part, 
have  simply  chosen  a  social  absolute  instead  of  some  other.  Their 
question  should  be  not  whether  there  is  an  absolute  in  morals,  but 
whether  they  have  the  right  one. 


420 


APPENDED  NOTE 


society  in  which  it  appeared.  If  you  answer,  in  view  of 
these  examples,  that  it  is  not  what  men  actually  want, 
but  what  they  rightfully  want,  that  is  authoritative 
over  me,  you  abandon  the  case.  If  another  mind, 
single  or  collective,  is  a  source  of  obligation  only  when 
it  desires  what  it  ought  to  desire,  the  implication  is 
that  I  have  an  ^ ought’  only  when  the  other  mind  has 
an  ‘ought,’  and  we  are  as  far  from  the  source  of 
obligation  as  before. 

This  is  not  a  mere  logical  quibble :  like  all  good  logic, 
it  is  but  the  briefest  expression  of  what  experience, 
at  great  length,  teaches.  That  I  have  an  ‘ought’  to 
another  only  when  the  other  has  an  ‘ought’  also,  is 
quite  plainly  a  result  of  experience.  We  do  not  find 
ourselves  moved  by  respect  toAvard  others  on  the 
ground  of  their  existence,  their  force  or  their  prowess, 
but  only  as  they  themselves  show  respect  to  something 
beyond.  Need  itself  would  not  move  us  if  need  Avere 
arrogant  rather  than  earnest.  It  is  pure  futility  to 
attempt  dermng  the  sentiment  of  reverence  from  any 
mixture  of  fear,  awe,  self-abnegation,  etc.  reverence 
goes  to  the  reverent,  and  to  no  others.  This  is  the 
main  part  of  the  answer  to  the  occasional  anxious 
question.  What  can  be  done  for  the  sobering  of  an 
irreverent  younger  generation?:  the  secular-minded 
person,  society.  State,  receives  and  deserves  slight 
deference;  it  is  man  at  Avorship  who  alone  becomes 
worshipful,  and  no  pedagogical  finesse  can  outleap  this 
principle.  WheneA^r  men  defer  to  each  other,  admit 
duties  to  the  other’s  rights,  it  will  be  found  that  there 

2  McDougall,  Social  Psychology,  p.  132. 


THE  SOURCE  OF  OBLIGATION 


421 


is  a  twofold  deference:  each  is  deferring  to  a  third 
entity,  dimly  discerned  as  a  mutual  object  of  respect, 
and  not  to  the  other  as  individual.  Is  it  not  in  some 
such  relatively  abstract  third  that  we  find  the  real 
source  of  obligation?  Such  is  the  view  of  Kant,  who 
defines  right  not  in  terms  of  society,  but  in  terms  of 
a  law,  which  is  over  all  alike. 

II 

In  setting  up  a  law  as  the  supreme  object  of  respect, 
Kant  seems  almost  to  abandon  the  outer  world  and 
to  leave  the  individual  alone  once  more  with  the 
workings  of  his  own  reason.  This  law  is  occupied 
entirely  with  what  we  have  called  the  ‘‘meaning’’  of 
an  action.  Every  decision,  thinks  Kant,  is  made  upon 
some  general  principle  or  “maxim” :  this  is  my  reason, 
or  excuse,  for  the  act, — it  is  what  the  act  means  to  me. 
The  requirement  of  duty  is  simply  that  I  shall  be 
willing  to  stand  by  these  meanings,  when  I  think  of 
them  as  being  universally  adopted.  “Admit  into  your 
conduct  only  such  meaning  as  you  would  willingly  see 
universal” — such  is  the  essence  of  Kant’s  law. 

To  apply  this  law,  I  must  use  both  imagination  and 
logic.  I  must  imagine  my  motive  made  universal;  I 
must  conceive  every  act  as  conveying  a  tacit  recom¬ 
mendation  of  its  ‘maxim’  for  general  use:  and  I  must 
consider  whether,  in  all  logic,  I  can  stand  by  it.  lake 
a  marksman,  the  moral  being  has  a  ‘picture’  to  whicli 
it  is  imperative  he  should  adjust  his  sight, — that  of 
perfect  consistency  of  policy  throughout  a  rational 


422 


APPENDED  NOTE 


universe.  When  his  act  presents  him  this  picture,  he 
may  release  it, — it  is  right.  This  picture,  and  nothing 
more  concrete,  is  the  object  of  his  obligation. 

One  must  use  imagination,  I  say,  to  apply  Kant’s 
law;  yet  it  would  be  highly  unjust  to  represent  this 
law  as  a  purely  imaginary  object  of  devotion.  The 
tendency  of  our  maxims,  or  meanings,  to  propagate 
themselves  is  real  enough.  Acts,  we  say,  tend  to 
establish  habits, — a  very  crude  bit  of  psycho-physics 
and  only  half  true.  For  no  one  can  tell  from  the 
mechanics  of  an  act  what  habit  it  tends  to  establish. 
I  give  a  penny  to  a  beggar :  what  habit  does  this  leave 
behind?  If  I  give  it  from  pity,  one  habit ;  if  for  display, 
another  habit ;  if  for  getting  rid  of  the  beggar,  a  third. 
Everything  depends  on  the  meaning:  it  is  this  alone 
that  universalizes  itself.  Self -propagation  of  maxims 
both  within  and  without  an  individual  life  is  no  mere 
fancy;  and  sin,  from  Kant’s  point  of  view,  appears  as 
the  refusal  to  accept  the  very  real  legislative  respon¬ 
sibility  of  an  act  for  its  maxim. 

It  must  be  admitted,  too,  that  Kant’s  theory  agrees 
closely  with  moral  experience.  When  men  refrain 
from  breaches  of  the  peace,  or  of  contract,  is  it  not 
because  they  perceive  quite  beyond  any  actual  conse¬ 
quences  that  that  kind  of  principle  will  not  do  for 
general  use?  And  if  they  go  out  of  their  way  for 
mutual  aid,  or  for  the  service  of  a  nation,  is  there  not, 
behind  the  personal  or  patriotic  sympathies  invoked, 
a  sense  that  the  principle  of  refusal  means  ruin  to  a 
certain  spiritual  structure  which  has  been  an  object 
of  unspoken  faith?  What  one  instinctively  holds  to. 


THE  SOURCE  OF  OBLIGATION 


423 


and  tries  to  preserve,  is  not  ^ society,^  as  an  eating  and 
breeding  entity  (otherwise  our  minds  would  be  attuned 
as  pragmatically  as  our  language  often  sounds) ;  it  is 
the  world  as  a  place  of  consistent,  thoughtful  meanings, 
the  home  of  universal  law. 

The  error  of  Kant’s  idea  is  not  that  his  law  is  too 
formal  and  empty,  nor  that  it  is  too  vigorous  and 
unbending.  These  two  criticisms  may  be  left  to  cancel 
one  another;  for  a  law  so  abstract  as  to  command 
nothing  at  all  can  hardly  be  so  rigid  as  to  allow  no 
room  for  individuality  and  growth.  Kant’s  law  stands 
near  to  that  critical  point  which  a  perfect  test  of  right 
and  wrong  must  hold :  it  is  abstract  enough  to  free  the 
mind  from  all  tyranny  of  concrete  absolutes  (as  the 
ten  commandments) ;  it  is  not  so  abstract  as  to  be 
devoid  of  meaning. 

The  trouble  with  the  Kantian  theory  is  that  the  law^ 
in  question  is  just  a  test  or  criterion  of  right  and 
wrong;  it  is  not  itself  the  source  of  obligation.  A 
criterion  must  be  abstract — it  would  be  absurd  to 
criticise  a  thermometer  as  a  test  of  fever  because  a 
thermometer  is  not  itself  a  temperature.  But  no 
abstraction  can  be  a  source  of  obligation.  Kant’s 
notable  utterance  of  reverence  for  the  moral  law 
involves  attributing  to  that  law  a  substantial  reality, 
like  that  of  the  ^‘starry  heavens,”  and  more  so.  It  is 
only  because  the  law  was  to  Kant  the  point  of  contact 
between  experience  and  a  world  metaphysical,  ‘intel¬ 
ligible,’  and  total  that  it  could  seem  to  command  the 
allegiance  of  practical  reason. 


424 


APPENDED  NOTE 


III 

The  source  of  obligation  must  be  something  that 
unites  the  living  reality  of  fellow  men  and  society  with 
the  totality  and  finality  of  the  Kantian  law.  If  we 
have  no  conception  at  hand  which  promises  at  once  to 
unite  these  characters,  the  schoolmen  certainly  had, 
and  we  may  still  learn  something  from  them. 

Thomas  Aquinas  was  already  familiar  with  the  idea 
that  the  moral  law  should  be  followed  for  the  sake  of 
the  moral  law;  and  he  had  already  pronounced  this 
view,  in  so  many  words,  to  be  unmoral.^  For  the  law 
exists  only  for  the  sake  of  a  goal  or  destiny  of  human 
life, — our  real  obligation  is  to  that  destiny. We  have 
a  particular  interest  in  the  views  of  St.  Thomas,  since 
he  has  stated  his  idea  of  obligation  in  connection  with 
a  theory  of  instinct. 

The  lower  animals,  he  thinks,  are  governed  by 
instinct,  and  especially  by  a  fundamental  life-instinct 
which  controls  all  lesser  instincts.  In  man  there  is 
something  which  corresponds  to  this  central  life- 
instinct,  indicating  to  him  his  destiny:  it  is  his 
^ synderesis/  It  is  defined  as  a  desire  or  longing  which 
presents  to  us  our  total  possible  good  in  the  form  of 
an  anticipatory  vision.®  Its  claim  upon  our  duty  lies 
in  part  in  the  fact  that  it  presents  to  us  our  possible 
blessedness ;  it  commands  us  to  live  according  to 

3  Summa,  I,  d.  1,  q.  2,  a.  1,  ad.  3. 

4  Siimma,  I,  2,  q.  71,  a.  6,  ad.  3. 

5  ‘ ‘Inchoatio  boni’’;  in  another  phrase,  ^ ‘ desiderium  naturale,  vol¬ 
untas  ut  natura. 


THE  SOUKCE  OF  OBLIGATION 


425 


reason,  but  that  means  to  St.  Thomas,  using  the 
behavior  which  reason  shows  as  means  to  blessedness. 

Sin,  from  this  view,  is  a  rejection  of  one’s  own 
blessedness;  but  it  is  sin  because  that  rejection  con¬ 
cerns  another  than  ourselves,  namely,  the  appointer 
of  destiny,  the  real  being.  The  interest  of  God  in  our 
realization  of  our  destiny  is  not  simply  that  of  one 
who  has  devised  that  destiny;  it  is  the  interest  of  one 
who  is  to  participate  in  it.  For  blessedness,  according 
to  Aquinas,  is  found  in  union  with  God:  such  union 
is  at  the  same  time  a  fulfilment  of  God’s  will  and  of 
our  own. 

I  am  not  concerned  here  to  discuss  the  accuracy  of 
these  metaphysical  ideas :  I  only  wish  to  point  out  that 
our  moral  experience  gives  much  weight  to  this  account 
of  the  source  of  obligation.  Unless  the  universe  has 
a  central  and  unified  life  in  which  our  destinies  are 
involved,  and  which  gives  these  destinies  a  higher 
importance  than  they  can  have  for  our  own  finite 
vision,  the  notion  of  obligation  loses  the  degree  of 
dignity  which  we,  in  fact,  ascribe  to  it.  When  we  speak 
of  the  rights  of  man  and  the  duties  of  man,  the  respect 
we  accord  them  is  measured  by  our  belief  that  they 
belong  to  man  as  a  metaphysical  entity,  a  ward  of 
the  universe.  The  work  these  ‘‘rights”  have  done  in 
history  may  testify  to  the  truth  of  this  statement. 

And  our  interest  in  our  destiny  is  at  the  same  time, 
as  Aquinas  says,  an  interest  in  a  possible  blessedness ; 
though  not  simply  in  a  far-oif  divine  event.  For  the 
destiny  of  the  human  will  is  to  co-operate,  in  some 
degree  of  present  awareness,  with  the  central  power 


426 


APPENDED  NOTE 


of  the  world;  and  so  far  to  perceive  in  present  expe¬ 
rience  the  quality  of  union  with  God.’’  In  their 
complete  meaning,  our  human  actions  are  not  only 
lawgiving  in  an  ideal  world, — they  are  creative  in  an 
actual,  but  unfinished  world.  Acting  as  artists  and 
originators,  every  deed  may  be  more  than  a  conformity 
to  a  rule,  or  a  subsumption  under  a  preconceived  good : 
it  may  be  also  an  invention,  a  new  fact.  It  may  assume 
in  its  own  degree  a  will  to  power  which  is  not  inter¬ 
preted  adequately  as  a  suggesting  of  maxims  for 
general  use,  but  rather  as  a  contribution  through  our 
thought  to  the  spiritual  substance  of  the  world.  Thus 
to  conceive  each  deed  is  the  best  privilege  of  human 
nature.  Our  obligation  is,  in  its  ultimate  interpre¬ 
tation,  to  achieve  such  blessedness.  And  from  the 
same  position  we  reach  the  completest  expression  of 
what  we  are  to  understand  by  sin. 

If  right  action  is  action  so  interpreted  that  I  assume 
the  place  of  creator  to  my  own  destiny  and  that  of 
others,  wrong  action  appears  as  a  false  assumption  of 
this  same  place.  But  the  false  claim  to  be  doing  the 
work  of  a  god  in  the  world  is  precisely  what  the  Greeks 
called  'ubris  and  the  Romans  superba;  and  we,  with 
hardly  equivalent  force,  presumption.  Inasmuch  as 
it  is  not  usual  for  us  to  conceive  our  deeds  consciouslv 
sub  specie  sBternitatis,  at  least  not  one  by  one,  this  may 
appear  as  a  somewhat  imaginative  extension  of  the 
meaning  of  sin.  Nevertheless,  with  the  right  of  inter¬ 
preting  which  we  have  no  choice  but  to  use,  the 
ordinary  courage  of  men  who  daily  face  their  own 
destiny  as  an  entire  metaphysical  fact  involves  just 


THE  SOURCE  OF  OBLIGATION  427 

this  will  to  stand  in  loco  Dei  to  the  circumstances  with 
which  they  deal.  Inasmuch  as  they  are  human  they, 
in  turn,  have  no  choice  but  to  see  things  whole,  and  as 
nearly  as  possible  as  they  are.  What  an  act  conveys  in 
meaning  is  not  the  work  of  a  special  conscious  judg¬ 
ment  :  it  is,  as  we  have  said,  the  sense  imposed  upon  it 
by  its  total  context.  And  thus,  whether  we  will  or  not, 
our  acts  have  for  us  a  metaphysical  meaning.  But 
there  is  this  difference  between  the  Greek  conception 
and  our  own.  To  the  Greeks  the  sin  of  arrogance, 
'ubris,  consisted  in  forgetting  to  think  as  mortals ;  and 
its  punishment  was  like  the  punishment  of  Babel,  a 
dizziness,  bewilderment,  madness,  such  as  must  come 
to  those  who  are  out  of  their  own  element.  To  us, 
sin  consists  equally  in  forgetting  to  think  as  gods. 
It  was  Aristotle  who,  in  replying  to  the  charge  that 
philosophical  thought  was  itself  arrogant,  uttered  the 
proud  word,  ^‘Let  us  live,  then,  as  if  divinity  (immor¬ 
tality)  were  our  share.’’  We  would  add  only:  This  is 
man’s  native  element.  It  is  his  destiny  so  to  live. 
His  sin  is  to  neglect  that  destiny — or  to  assume  it 
unworthily. 

We  have  here,  too,  perhaps  the  best  illustration  of 
the  principle  we  have  noted  from  time  to  time;  that 
of  the  descriptive  identity  of  sin  and  virtue.  In  the 
higher  reaches  of  self-consciousness,  the  difficulty  of 
decision  often  lies  here.  If  anyone  assumes  a  position 
of  moral  leadership,  and  therefore  of  moral  solitude, 
he  cannot  wholly  avoid  fearing  his  own  audacity ;  hence 
the  conflict  which  we  know  to  have  taken  place  in  the 
minds  of  such  men  as  Mazzini,  Luther,  Lincoln, — the 


428 


APPENDED  NOTE 


conflict  of  determining  the  narrow  margin  between  the 
trne  and  the  false  presumption.  The  reported  tempta¬ 
tion  of  Jesus  seems  to  be  a  symbolical  account  of  an 
inner  struggle  such  as  could  occur  only  to  one  who 
had  gone  far  on  the  way  to  a  great  cast  of  cosmic  bold¬ 
ness.  To  presume  so  much  was  to  ‘‘make  himself  equal 
with  God’’;  to  presume  less  was  ^o  be  false  to  his 
own  genius. 


INDEX 


Absolute,  26,  289,  331,  350,  354, 
367. 

Acquisition,  instinct  of,  50,  60,  95, 
245. 

Activity,  general  instinct  to,  53  f. 

Admiration,  192. 

Adolescence,  245  ff.,  296,  297. 

Aeschylus,  265  £. 

Aesthetic  experience  (see  also  Art), 
49,  64,  191,  304,  306  f.,  315, 
353  f.,  368. 

After-image,  mental,  160  f.,  171, 
316. 

Alternation,  chs.  XXXIV,  XXXY, 
esp.  p.  288,  and  pp.  330  f.,  368  f. 

Altruism,  89,  183,  185,  226  f.,  419. 

Ambition,  ch.  XLIII  and  pp.  143, 
174,  278,  280,  322,  380,  390. 

America,  21,  225. 

Anger  (v.  pugnacity),  45,  49,  117. 

Animism,  241. 

Anxiety-neurosis,  20,  141  f. 

A  priori,  305,  309,  315. 

Aquinas,  Thomas,  424  ff. 

Aristotle,  87  f..  Ill,  139,  183,  184, 
229,  276,  284,  398,  427. 

Art  (v.  aesthetic  experience),  ch. 
XXXVIII,  p.  316,  and  also  pp. 
3,  74,  80,  108,  189,  229,  291,  331. 

Asceticism  (v.  saintly  ideal),  214, 
327,  329  ff.,  355  ff. 

Atonement,  381,  395,  414  f. 

Augustine,  139,  334. 

Authority  (v.  recommenders),  97, 
1301,  192,  246. 

Bahhitt,  I.,  28  n. 

Bagehot,  W.,  197  n.,  314  n. 


Balance  of  instincts,  48,  53,  179. 

Beautiful,  The,  320. 

Behavior-ism,  38  f.,  79,  341. 

Belief,  237. 

Bergson,  H.,  2,  46,  76  n.,  212  n., 
319,  412. 

Blame  (v.  Justice),  140,  141  n. 

Bohemia,  108  f.,  236. 

Bosanquet,  B.,  16. 

Brahmanism,  ch.  XXXVII  passim, 
and  also  pp.  333,  394  ff. 

Buddha,  Buddhism,  17,  75,  111, 
334,  373  ff.,  394  ff. 

Burke,  Edm.,  26  f.,  129,  181. 

Cahot,  B.  C.,  330  n. 

Calvinism,  103. 

Carpenter,  J.  E.,  395  n. 

Carver,  T.  N.,  20  n. 

Catholicism  (v.  Church),  378. 

Causality,  158  ff. 

Central  instincts,  ch.  X,  p.  61,  and 
also  pp.  49,  55,  71  f.,  115. 

Chadbourne,  46,  57. 

Character,  101,  138,  148,  148  n., 
324. 

Chesterton,  G.  K.,  123  n. 

Christianity,  Part  VII,  p.  337,  and 
also  pp.  22,  28,  31,  214,  332,  381, 
399,  428. 

Church,  375,  377. 

Civilization,  405  ff. 

Climbing  instinct,  51,  239. 

Coenesthesia,  159. 

Cognition  (as  ingredient  in  value), 
64  f.,  80  f.,  219. 

Competitive  and  non-competitive 
interests,  74,  181,  200,  239  f. 


430 


INDEX 


Conscience,  Part  III,  p.  85,  and 
also  pp.  20,  304. 

Consciousness  (v.  self-conscious¬ 
ness,  behavior),  2,  9,  41,  104. 

Conservatism,  223  f.,  228,  254. 

Contract,  social  (v.  State,  Poli¬ 
ties),  192,  197,  208. 

Convention  (v.  Custom),  173,  357. 

Conversation,  6  n.,  184. 

Conversion  (v.  Kebirth),  22,  31, 
297,  342,  376. 

Cram,  Balph  Adams,  318  n. 

Crime,  257. 

Criticism,  3,  5,  345  f. 

Culture,  205,  219,  261. 

Curiosity,  instinct  of,  27,  51,  55, 
61  f.,  69,  88,  155,  249,  397,  415. 

Custom  (v.  Convention),  98,  107, 
122,  181,  273. 

Cynicism,  353. 

Darwin,  Ch.,  46. 

Democracy,  72,  222,  318  n.,  325, 
332,  386,  390,  407. 

Desire  (v.  Feeling),  42,  80,  81  n., 
218. 

Dialectic,  163,  171,  206,  207,  260, 
344,  356  ff.,  362,  374,  402. 

Dignity,  306. 

Dilemmas,  moral,  127,  262. 

Discipline,  chs.  IV-VI,  and  pp.  17, 
254  f. 

Discrimination,  180,  218. 

Dreams,  316. 

DnrTcheim,  E.,  209. 

Duty,  417  ff. 

Economics,  7,  20,  200  ff.,  208,  219, 
313. 

Education,  eh.  XXX,  p.  226,  and 
also  pp.  3,  30,  93,  148  n.,  149, 
161,  171,  295,  323,  345  ff.,  420. 

Energism,  214. 


Energy,  78. 

Environment,  1. 

Equality,  13,  312,  325. 

Equity  (v.  Justice). 

Eugenics,  13. 

Evil,  6,  31,  107,  129,  135,  214  ff., 
260,  263,  319,  393,  402. 

Experience  (v.  Dialectic,  Dilemma, 
Logic,  Pragmatism),  Part  IV, 
p.  145,^and  also  pp.  14,  29,  33, 
70  f.,  148,  315,  316,  317. 

Experimentalism  (v.  Pragmatism, 
Experience),  222,  223,  224,  225, 
408,  414  f. 

Family  (v.  also  Private  Order), 
194,  211,  265  f.,  282  f.,  325. 

Pear  (and  flight),  instinct  of,  43, 
47,  49,  52  ff.,  61,  69  n.,  73,  92, 
152,  268,  373. 

Feeling  (v.  Desire,  Cognition),  42, 
80  f.,  268,  339  f. 

Fichte,  J.  G.,  396  n. 

Food-getting  instinct,  27,  51,  72, 
172,  178,  301. 

Foster,  G.  B,,  384  n. 

Freedom  (v.  Liberty,  Eight),  ch. 
Ill,  p.  9,  and  also  pp.  25,  91  n., 
125  ff.,  147,  194,  340. 

Freud,  S.,  Freudism,  19,  75  ff., 
317  n.,  356. 

General  instincts,  151,  152. 

God,  20,  329,  393,  398  f.,  401. 

Gregariousness,  instinct  of  (v. 
Sociability),  27. 

Grotius,  H.,  47. 

Habit,  41,  148,  153,  422. 

Hadley,  A.  T.,  224  n. 

Hall,  Stanley,  111. 

Hate  (v.  also  Pugnacity),  351. 

Happiness,  216,  236. 


INDEX 


Hedonism,  162,  214. 

Hegel,  G.  W.  F.,  25,  181,  192  n., 
199,  210  n.,  212. 

Hohhes,  Thomas,  37,  47,  123  n., 
133,  181,  197,  198,  199,  202. 

Holt,  E.  B.,  19,  25,  68,  171,  214. 

Hume,  David,  198  n. 

Hunger  (v.  Food-getting  instinct), 
47. 

Idea  (v.  Cognition,  Intelligence), 
142,  204,  320,  350,  358,  368,  385, 
388. 

Ideals,  16  f.,  29  n.,  181,  183  ff.,  211, 
354. 

Imitation  (v.  Admiration,  Author¬ 
ity),  193,  318. 

Immortality,  142,  207,  364,  366, 
373. 

Incarnation,  389. 

Individualism,  149,  166  f.,  171,  176, 
182,  184,  204,  248  f.,  2541, 

324  1 

Individuality,  403. 

Instinct,  chs.  VII  ff.,  and  also  p. 
24,  409. 

Institution,  3,  181,  211  ff.,  280,  333. 

Insurance,  197. 

Intelligence,  151  f.,  157  f. 

Interpretation  (v.  Meaning),  62, 
71,  116,  301  1,  322,  356,  370, 
380. 

Intuition,  9,  11,  308,  358. 

James,  Wm.,  46,  57,  58,  243,  341. 

Judaism,  339. 

Jung,  C.  G.,  76. 

Jury,  106. 

Justice  (v.  Blame,  Right,  Law), 
87,  142,  196,  258,  310,  349  ff., 
368. 

Kant,  L,  25,  243,  330,  342,  384, 
421  1 


431 

Karma,  309. 

Knowledge  (v.  Cognition,  Self- 
consciousness,  Reason ) . 

Kohler,  J.,  134  n.,  197  n.,  198  n., 
202,  209  n. 

Labor  (v.  Economics,  Food-get¬ 
ting),  183,  220,  247. 

Language,  3,  16,  89  n.,  94  n.,  352, 
357. 

Law,  Legislation  (v.  Politics,  Jus¬ 
tice,  State),  3,  12,  18,  120,  186  f., 
196  1,  222,  294  1,  299  ff.,  421. 

Learning,  curve  of,  126. 

Lee,  Joseph,  65. 

Leibniz,  78. 

Leuba,  James  H,,  373  n. 

Liberalism,  7,  17. 

Liberation,  Liberators,  ch.  IV  ff. 

Liberty  (v.  Freedom,  Right),  21, 
24,  172,  222,  230. 

Lippert,  J.,  95. 

Locice,  J.,  186,  305. 

Locomotion,  instinct  of,  51  f. 

Logic  in  psychology,  75,  82,  104, 
119,  193,  420  f. 

Love  (v.  Parental  instinct.  Altru¬ 
ism,  Sex,  Sociability),  47,  51,  75, 
140,  282,  287,  341  1,  351,  354. 

McDougall,  William,  46,  54,  58  f., 
62,  63,  90,  118,  152  n.,  247,  339, 
420  n. 

Machiavelli,  N.,  12. 

Maine,  Sir  Henry,  191  n.,  310,  313. 

Maladaptation,  214  f. 

Martyrdom,  413  ff. 

Meaning  (v.  Interpretation),  42, 
70,  120  1,  164,  180,  258. 

Mediaeval,  318  n.,  3341 

Metaphysics,  78,  99,  138  f.,  147, 
248,  320,  329,  358  1,  400,  403, 
404,  414  1 


432 


INDEX 


Mill,  J.  S.,  225. 

Mind  (v.  Self,  Will,  Personality). 

Momentum,  mental,  244. 

Montesquieu,  47. 

More,  Paul  Elmer,  21  n. 

Morgan,  Lloyd,  90,  159. 

Murray,  Gill>ert,  396. 

Mysticism,  20,  328,  387,  395,  404. 

Myth,  294. 

Necessary  interests,  64,  64  n.,  118, 
143,  201,  208,  255. 

Negative  Pragmatism  (v.  Pragma¬ 
tism). 

Nietzsche,  Fr.,  18,  21  f.,  27  f.,  74, 
78,  390  n. 

Obligation,  417  ff. 

Originality,  135,  249. 

Pacifism,  133,  351  ff.,  355. 

Pain,  156  E.,  173,  219. 

Parental  instinct,  27,  89,  226,  407, 
411. 

Parsons,  Elsie  Clews,  176  n. 

Passion,  43,  118  f.,  278,  321,  357. 

Patriotism,  206. 

Peirce,  Charles,  82. 

Penology  (v.  Punishment),  esp.  ch. 
XXXII. 

Perry,  B,  B.,  64,  66. 

Personality,  78,  212,  248  f.,  312, 
316,  345. 

Pessimism,  12,  13,  214,  216. 

Philosophy,  3. 

Plato,  11,  30,  192  n.,  276,  364, 
385  n.,  390,  398. 

Play,  instinct  of,  10,  55,  55  n.,  73, 
155,  242,  291. 

Pleasure,  81  f.,  121,  122  n.,  156  f., 
219. 

Politics  (v.  State),  3,  7,  87,  129, 
186,  256. 


Postulates,  185,  200,  221,  225. 

Power  (v.  Will  to  power),  43,  99, 
202  E.,  216. 

Pragmatism,  137  f.,  276,  300  f., 
308,  314,  315,  341,  362,  404,  405, 
410. 

Progress,  412. 

Property  (v.  Economics,  Labor, 
Acquisition),  175,  210  n.,  211  f., 
220,  312. 

Prophetic  Consciousness  (v.  Will  to 
Power),  305,  306,  321. 

Protestantism,  378,  379. 

Prudence,  162. 

Psychoanalysis  (v.  Freud). 

Psychology  (in  relation  to  biology, 
V.  Consciousness,  Behavior),  4, 
83,  87,  179,  356  f.,  386,  417. 

Ptah  Hotep,  303. 

Public  and  Private  Orders,  289  f. 

Pugnacity,  instinct  of  (v.  Anger), 
chs.  XXIV,  XXVIII,  XXXI, 
XXXII,  XLI,  and  also  pp.  47, 
49,  51,  54,  55,  61,  89,  95,  112  f., 
114,  117,  119,  131  f.,  161,  259, 
365,  376,  406. 

Punishment,  ch.  XXXII,  p.  257, 
and  also  pp.  3,  142  f.,  165,  173, 
254  f.,  310. 

Putnam,  J.  J.,  76  n. 

Quantity,  in  psychology,  2,  18,  212. 

Eadicalism,  223. 

Eealism  (moral),  191,  318. 

Eeason  (v.  Cognition,  Intelligence), 
25,  174. 

Eebellion,  ch.  XXXI,  p.  254,  and 
also  pp.  212,  238,  248,  252. 

Eebirth,  Eegeneration  (v.  Conver¬ 
sion),  20,  295,  364. 

Eecognition,  206. 


INDEX 


433 


Eecommenders  (v.  Authority), 

183  ff. 

Reverence,  420. 

Religion,  Parts  VI  and  VII,  and 
also  pp.  3,  6,  13,  20,  97,  143, 
251,  269,  273  1,  291,  314,  331  n., 
369,  374,  390,  403. 

Repression,  19,  109,  199. 

Revenge,  164  f.,  260,  263  1 
Reverence,  312. 

Rhythm,  64. 

Right  (v.  Liberty,  Justice),  184, 

184  n.,  234,  257,  310,  418,  424. 
Romanticism,  21,  25. 

Boss,  E.  A.,  174,  419. 

Bousseau,  18,  22,  24  f.,  37,  187  1, 
199. 

Boyce,  J.,  197  n.,  377,  400. 

Rue,  Ruing,  135,  399. 

Bussell,  Bertrand,  149,  230  n.,  233. 

Sacrifice,  414  f. 

Sacrilege,  311. 

Saintly  ideal  (v.  Asceticism),  14  f., 
333  ff. 

Salvation,  Saving,  273  f.,  279,  373, 
380,  384,  394. 

Sanctions  (v.  Pain,  Punishment). 
Schneider,  G.  H.,  54,  58,  76. 
Schopenhauer,  220  n.,  288,  371,  414. 
Self,  unity  of  (v.  Personality, 
Will),  42,  43,  44,  69  ff.,  154,  219, 
240  ff.,  397. 

Self-assertion  and  self-abasement, 
instincts  of  (v.  Ambition,  Fear), 
50,  69,  247,  342,  357,  406,  410, 
411,  418. 

Self-consciousness  (v.  Conscious¬ 
ness,  Conscience),  2  f.,  43,  92, 
98,  147,  1871,  190,  214,  219, 
226  f.,  297,  315,  317,  345. 
Self-elimination,  social  (v.  Indi¬ 
vidualism),  189,  251. 


Self-preservation,  instinct  of  (v. 
Will  to  live),  65,  66,  69,  75  n. 

Self -regarding  sentiment,  92. 

Sensitivity,  218. 

Sex,  instinct  of  (v.  Love),  eh. 
XLII,  p.  355,  and  also  pp.  27, 
49  f.,  53,  56,  76  f.,  95,  112  1, 
114,  179,  211,  2451,  249,  263, 
308,  322  1,  325,  376. 

Shaw,  Bernard,  250. 

Sin,  chs.  XVI  ff..  Appended  Note, 
p.  417  ff.,  and  pp.  381,  399. 

Sin,  original,  ch.  XX,  p.  137,  and 
also  pp.  6  f.,  13,  103,  111  1, 
113  n.,  261. 

Sociability,  instinct  of  (v.  Gre¬ 
gariousness),  30,  65,  72,  88,  97, 
128  1,  240  n.,  345,  397. 

Social  contract  (v.  Contract). 

Socrates,  348,  386. 

Soul,  303. 

Sovereignty  (v.  Individualism, 
State),  208,  2551 

Spencer,  H.,  18,  95,  171  n.,  340. 

Spinoza,  32,  333  1 

State,  the  (v.  Polities,  Right,  Law 
and  Legislation,  Public  Order), 
89,  205  ff.,  245,  257,  283,  284, 
324,  331  1,  381,  411,  419. 

Stimulus,  42,  62,  65,  235,  243. 

Substance,  277  1 

Supernatural,  328. 

Synderesis,  424. 

Syndicalism,  212,  286  n. 

Tabu,  300,  308. 

Teleology,  400. 

Tenderness  (v.  Parental  Instinct). 

Thorndike,  E.  L.,  59,  79,  89  n.,  90, 
111,  153  n.,  158. 

Thought  (v.  Idea,  Cognition,  In¬ 
telligence). 


434 


i:n^dex 


Tolstoy,  206,  349,  355. 

Toyndee,  A.,  286. 

Triadic  structure,  190,  192  n. 

Units  of  behavior,  51,  234,  239. 
Universal  and  particular,  151,  193, 
258. 

Utility,  300  ff.,  359,  367. 

Value,  42,  44,  311,  408,  409,  411, 
413. 

Value,  theory  of,  32  f.,  46,  48, 
81  n.,'  174  f. 

Vehlen,  T.,  241. 

Vedantism,  333. 

Vestibule  of  satisfaction,  178. 
Vicariousness,  215. 


Waiting  capacity,  179,  215,  219, 
244. 

Wallas,  Graham,  69  n.,  277  n. 

War  in  general  (v.  Pacifism,  Pug¬ 
nacity),  214,  217,  351  ff. 

War,  the,  21,  406  ff.,  408,  411. 

Watson,  J.,  154  n. 

West 67' march,  89  f. 

Whitman,  Walt,  102,  401. 

Will,  ch.  XI,  p.  68,  and  also  pp. 
116,  151,  231. 

Will  to  live  (v.  Self-preservation), 
65,  66,  73,  201. 

Will  to  power  (v.  Power,  Will), 
65,  72  f.,  89,  99,  115,  143,  242, 
316,  333,  360  f.,  389. 

Wollaston,  122. 

Worship,  319,  368  f. 


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